The importance of sustainability in data centre design.
Embodied carbon comparisons.The breakdown on a whole life basis (the embodied carbon both on day one and ongoing across the next 60 years, accounting for any maintenance and repairs and what happens when the building or components are at their end of life), shows the superstructure, external wall including curtain walling, and MEP to be the predominant contributors to the whole life carbon.
These are the main areas where lessons can be learned on how to reduce embodied carbon.. As-built embodied carbon analysis.There is a perception across the construction industry that operational carbon is more significant than embodied carbon.Our results show that operational carbon is expected to account for around a third of whole life carbon over the next 60 years (decarbonisation of the electricity grid is not currently accounted for).
This operational carbon is based on NABERS Design for Performance modelling and is monitored during the building’s first year of occupation.. At two thirds of the whole life carbon of a building, embodied carbon is critical to address in the early design stages and provides the greatest opportunity for overall carbon impact reduction..Operational carbon vs embodied carbon.
When considering how design choices impact embodied carbon, the data only supports the upfront carbon due to incomplete data for whole life carbon (WLC) for the BaU scheme (in 2018 the industry wasn’t regularly considering WLC calculations for projects)..
The key findings:.However, this can lead to budget issues; the laboratory designer must evaluate the costs of the users’ requests against the functionality of the lab to determine the scope.
Some clients will have a very clear scope, especially if the lab is an expansion or extension of an existing process, but some clients will need help in creating the scope, especially for new processes.It should also be noted that users often have a fixed solution in mind based on what they have done in the past - their solution may not be the best for the laboratory design project, and it is our job to challenge their assumptions and offer alternative, perhaps better, solutions..
Lab processes can be grouped into distinct functional spaces, for example: dry processes, milling, synthesis or analytics.These functional spaces are theoretical zones which have no spatial definition, acting as a visual way of defining a group of processes which are related to one another..
(Editor: Quick Routers)