Reliance on compliance

One six-storey building housing Canterbury Television in Christchurch, New Zealand collapsed during last year’s earthquake killing 115 people. New Zealand’s department of building and housing found that the building did not meet minimum requirements, even when it was built in 1986.

The report concluded that load-bearing concrete columns were reinforced with insufficient steel, making them brittle, and that the columns’ asymmetrical layout made the building twist during the quake, placing extra strain on those columns.  The department’s report is now with New Zealand police to determine if there is criminal culpability.

This was one tragedy of non-compliance. There are countless others that have come to light after natural disasters in Turkey, China and too many more cases where it really has been a matter of comply or die.

Less dramatic but also with important consequences is the respect of buildings performance requirements. There is a focus on regulation compliance in recent years with the growing evidence that compliance can have a major impact on the overall effectiveness of programmes.  Poor implementation — due in large part to non-compliance — can reduce a programme’s impact by 20-50 % according to experts.  As noted by the chair at a 2008 IEA workshop on compliance, indicative levels of non-compliance span approximately 25% for appliance programmes, to up to 50% for building regulations.  The workshop was entitled Meeting Energy Efficiency Goals:  Enhancing compliance, monitoring and evaluation, and it was held 28-29 February 2009.

Unfortunately, as EiD has found in previous investigations, there are few documented studies but anecdotal evidence illustrates the crucial effect of compliance if the specifications of regulations and standards are to be achieved.

Inadequate compliance not only reduces energy performance in buildings; it also leads to failure to meet policy objectives, thus affecting an entire regional or national energy efficiency strategy.  In many countries, the priority for energy efficiency is already tenuous.  Poor compliance can diminish support for energy efficiency among decision-makers and public.

Building codes are generally enforced but enforcement has been principally for other reasons, mainly health and safety. The recast of the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive in the EU has an entire article and an annex on the requirement and procedures for compliance. This should substantially improve compliance of building codes throughout Europe.

Compliance with energy standards in buildings has fallen behind for many reasons, such as:

• Lack of manpower to carry out building code enforcement or verification of labels and standards in general
• Insufficient time available to spend on building sites to inspect for energy code compliance
• Energy codes are often considered a lower priority than other areas such as health and safety.
• Enforcement officers do not receive sufficient training in energy elements of building codes
• Jurisdictional conflicts resulting in unclear allocations of responsibility
• Lack of appropriate enforcement powers and processes
• Lack of awareness of the importance of compliance and the effects on overall impact by poor compliance

The barriers to compliance can be summed as a lack of priority, awareness and resources.

Perhaps not on the scale of the building in Christchurch, non-compliance with energy standards in buildings can nonetheless lead to premature death or serious health effects in poor buildings with occupants in fuel poverty. And it can certainly lead to distortions of policy and the economy if standards are not fully respected.