The Low Carbon Learning Curve for Education Construction

Adopting low carbon construction for education isn’t simply a case of saying, ‘that’s what we’re going to do’. There’s a learning curve involved. In our experience, successive projects and careful measurement of the results progressively add to the knowledge base and improve performance.

Innovaré has delivered a series of low carbon education builds in partnership with Mid Group and architects Bond Bryan since 2017. By investing in long-term partnerships, the real-world measured energy consumption of new school buildings has progressively been reduced.

The first project in the series was the Robert Clack Lower School  – a 1500 sq m teaching block. This SIP structure was completed in eight months and achieved an energy consumption of 74.20 kWhr/m2/yr.

This performance level was improved to 68.50 kWhr/m2/yr for the subsequent Upper School building. Following this, the Lymington Fields School – a hybrid concrete and SIP structure – managed to bring energy use down to 60 kWhr/m2/yr.

It’s unlikely that such a dramatic reduction in energy consumption would have been achieved without the partners working together closely to improve our understanding of low carbon school construction. Greater understanding of the building system by all partners also allowed the Lymington Fields project to be completed seven months ahead of schedule.

Reducing Embodied and Operational Carbon

More recent projects include the 13,000 sq m Broxbourne School that features structural SIP walls for the teaching blocks and a SIP-wrapped steel frame for the larger spaces. The structure achieves a U value of 0.2W/m2k and airtightness of 5m3/m2/h – both comfortably below DfE specifications. The high structural timber content reduced embodied as well as operational carbon.

As the ability to create energy efficient school buildings becomes embedded, focus is shifting to embodied carbon and limiting the use of materials such as steel and concrete. The new Helena Romanes School in Essex uses a full SIP structure with a glulam and timber additional structure to limit both operational and embodied carbon.

Innovaré’s partnerships with developers and architects have proved the ability to design and build genuinely low carbon schools cost-effectively. This can be achieved without compromising on appearance or practicality. The shared learning makes a fully net zero carbon school a realistic option.

Contact (enquiries@innovaresystems.co.uk) for more information or take a look at our Net Zero Carbon Construction resource centre.