RE + build 2012

Rod Janssen recently attended Italy’s first national convention on best practices, case studies, and experience to retrofit buildings.  The conference was to kickstart the transformation of Italy’s retrofit construction market.  Rod spoke at one session on the impact of EU legislation on retrofitting buildings.

It is useful for EiD readers to read some of the closing remarks by Gianluca Salvatori, president of Progetto Manifattura, and one of the main organisers of the convention.  It is well worth those working in this field in other countries to reflect on what he said.

Rod wants to congratulate the organisers of the conference and wish them all the best to continue this effort in the future.

Excerpts of the closing remarks by Gianluca Salvatori

Re + build has been three days of intense work. In this time we analyzed and discussed specific cases of requalification. The comparison was honest, the voices were never monotonous, the approach inspired a search for new perspectives on the basis of existing solutions.

If it were not that we live in a time when the word “intellectual” sometimes passes for an insult, we should say that what we have produced here in this meeting is, precisely, an intellectual work, which has its main purpose in giving the keys to evaluate our work (professional or business) and ask ourselves about the directions to take.

The amplitude of the comparison and the variety of experiences make risky a summary. However, the work would not be complete if we do not we assumed this risk.

Here are three points which I propose to report to those who want to know how we spent our time in Riva.

• A construction sector based on the principles of environmental sustainability and energy efficiency can contribute crucially to the future growth of the Italian economy.

• The two areas where we can provide the greatest contribution are the redevelopment of the existing buildings and sustainable management of the building throughout its entire life cycle.

• The speed of the transition to the scenario of a sustainable building is determined by the choice of a number of public and private actors. Their behavior reflects a number of different positions as well as economic, cultural and ethical reasons. It is not realistic – or even useful – to expect perfect unity of purpose.

To justify the these three statements I would have to discuss the details of everything that has been said in these days in the 5 plenary and 28 seminars. I will briefly cover the main points of the arguments that we have worked on.

1. The building of Italy are old and require more than simple maintenance. The age is not a problem in itself but becomes so because of changes in energy costs and expectations in terms of comfort and well-being.

2. The responsibility of the construction sector to achieve the goals of reduced consumption of energy from non-renewable sources is significant: 40 per cent of consumption. The sector can play a key role in achieving international commitments (from 2020 to post-Kyoto).

3. There is room for improvement. In real estate (public or private, large groups or individual owners) waste reduction has an economic value to calculate, even if a standard metric is not yet defined.

4. In other countries, the process of defining the criteria for the measurement of benefits is more advanced, while, in Italy, it is hard even to know the basic numbers, such as the size of the assets in public ownership. It is true, however, in absolute terms, that the estimates in Italy are absent. Nomisma estimates that the employment impact of the retrofit of public property and school in Italy could represent an increase of 382,000 employees and a 1.4% increase in value added, from works with estimated cost of around 24 billion euro.

5. The calculation of returns is complicated because the benefits of redevelopment are not simply direct measurements: working and living environments designed according innovative principles have demonstrable positive effects in terms productivity and well-being. These are also aspects that should be included in the assessment of return on investment.

6. Regarding a metric to assess benefits: the feeling that we can draw from this encounter is that it must be the result of a process that involves all stakeholders, rather than the mere adoption of a set of indicators that are translated from other contexts. In a sense, the metric is the work of building communities of interest rather than the expectation of a downward movement that stems from legislation or imitation of others’ experiences. The process of convergence in the metric indicators as important as the final outcome of their application.

Among the specificity Italian then there are three aspects that have emerged with clarity: the first positive, the second and the third are critical.

The first is the culture of reuse, for which Italy can count on strong roots. Unlike other “building cultures” in our country the renovation of existing buildings prevails over reconstruction. In addition, as in the case of works in the historical and artistic heritage shows, there is a strong “constructive culture” Italian that refers to a cluster of highly contextualized knowledge and skills accumulated by professionals and companies with strong ties to its territory.

This theme also connects directly to a second aspect, related to the integrated design. In order to avoid the harmful effects of irresponsibility that follow to excessive fragmentation, projects must be designed as integrated units rather than the sum of individual actions with their untied. This is also true in the relationship between redevelopment and subsequent management of the rehabilitated property, which can not be treated as separate phases and simply juxtaposed. On this side, however, the situation is not helped by the systematic use of systematic public procurement – comparison with other possible alternatives, such as PPP and concession schemes – which prevents a long-term perspective (10 years) and a co-design of interventions rehabilitation and after-care, with the effects of mutual responsibility on the part of both the contracting entity that the contractor.

As for the third aspect, as it became clear listening to the English experience of the Green Deal, it is clear the importance of a strategy that is not limited to short-term objectives. The industry needs a medium to long term, while the approach that prevails today puts focus almost exclusively on short-term results. We heard how the current pressure for a pure and simple sale of public assets might not get the desired effect. And we have seen the consequences of this on the local short-termism is often translated into hasty choices and without any logical system.

. . .

In all innovation processes, first movers have the task to experiment and start the change curve, which only later will see increased gradually spread to a majority of subjects. Sustainability in construction is still a movement in which prevails a minority of first movers, while the majority of businesses are still waiting for the adoption of measures imposing new standards.