UK may be baling up greenhouse gas emissions
Eastern Ontario AgriNews / Suzanne Atkinson / June 2009
BELLEVILLE – He’s no expert on the Canadian scene, but a UK civil engineer says that with strong buy-in from the British government, the UK will see an increase in the use of crop-based building materials as it works to reduce its carbon emissions.
Professor Peter Walker, a director and researcher at Bath University’s building research centre for innovative construction materials, says both straw and hemp-based building materials, won’t go mainstream anytime soon, but they are gaining ground.
"I don’t see them as a universal panacea, but a significant portion (of new buildings) will," use those materials.
He said the UK’s construction industry is responsible for about 10 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions, with new and existing buildings contributing about half of the UK’s footprint; one third of that coming from the housing sector.
"The recession has hit the construction industry, but green building has held up or slightly grown," he said.
Walker visited central Ontario recently, speaking at a meeting of the Eastern Lake Ontario Regional Innovation Network. He also toured a Sir Sandford Fleming College sustainable building site.
With support from the government, including a code for sustainable homes which aims to reduce carbon emissions from new homes by 90 per cent by 2016, there’s huge potential for buildings using renewable resources.
The use of renewable materials, Walker said opens up competition for agricultural markets, reduces the depletion of non-renewables and has proven to offer high levels of thermal insulation, with hemp-lime and straw bale structures actually storing, rather than emitting carbon.
"The farm can replace the quarry as a source of material," Walker said, describing straw as a "very low carbon plant-based material."
And there’s room for a "definite skill set" to specialize in the construction of such buildings.
"To me we have been de-skilling the industry; bricklayers and carpenters are not valued," Walker said, adding there is a need for tradesmen with "artisan skills."
An "experienced tradesman," could learn it in no time.
