Markets for Green Buildings and Infrastructure - Construction Economics: A New Approach - page 153

increased by a factor of four. Obviously such an increase in efficiency would reduce
the demands placed on the natural environment. To demonstrate that a quadrupling
of resource productivity was technically possible the report included fifty examples.
Twenty were related to energy productivity in various contexts, from refrigerators
to hypercars; a further twenty were concerned with material productivity, ranging
from residential water efficiency to timber-framed building. A decade later an even
more ambitious target was set in the sequel Factor Five : Transforming the Global
Economy (Weizsäcker et al. 2009). This work focused on four sectors, namely
buildings, agriculture, transport and industry (steel and cement), and presented
several best practice case studies. These included a whole systems approach to
commercial buildings and a detailed analysis of the passive house movement.
Encouragingly, in the context of construction economics, many of the examples
were relevant to the markets for green buildings and infrastructure, and some of
these are listed in Table 9.4 .
Table 9.4 Examples of resource productivity (Factors four and five)
Steel or timber frame versus concrete
Compact fluorescent and LED lighting
Air conditioning versus passive cooling
Liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs and computer screens
Renovating old terraced derelict slums
Superwindows and large office retrofits
Solar energy systems
Conservation versus demolition
Source: Adapted from Weizsäcker et al. (1998) and (2009)
In discussing the various examples, Weizsäcker et al. (1998 and 2009) highlight
the competitive advantages that could be achieved by exploiting resource efficiency.
The possibilities and opportunities they describe are achievable by most firms in
any part of the world seeking to differentiate their products. In most industries, if
producers are offered the opportunity to adapt production to make it significantly
quicker, of consistently higher quality and with a potential of saving up to 80 per
cent of resources, they would give it a try. Construction, however, is notoriously
slow to take advantage of any new opportunities that present themselves. The
debate concerning the slow uptake of off-site production was introduced in
Chapter 7 and Reading 2. This debate has been ongoing for more than twenty
years and forms an important part of the sustainable construction agenda. It has
been informed and given impetus by several government reports. For example, the
Innovation and Growth Team report published in 2010 encouraged the industry
once again to realise the benefits that the controlled environment of a manufacturing
plant could offer to achieve reductions in construction costs, delivery times and