Source: Building Daily

Designing energy-efficient buildings is one thing, making sure they live up to their credentials is another. At this year’s Ecobuild, BRE will launch BREEAM In-Use, which it hopes will provide the answer.

As the latest in BRE’s suite of environmental assessment tools, BREEAM In-Use has been created to ensure buildings are run as efficiently as possible and provide a route for owners and occupiers to assess and improve the environmental performance of existing buildings.

According to Martin Townsend, director of BREEAM, it has been developed to recognise and encourage better building management and to target investment in existing building stock.

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Source: Planning Daily – Environment Bulletin

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ report Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable? considers the possible climate changes that we may expect over the next 1,000 years due to continuing CO2 emissions, and recommends what engineers need to do to adapt to the future world.

The report says: “due to the increasing regularity of flooding and the impact of rising sea levels on coastal areas the long-term viability of entire settlements might be in jeopardy.”

“Indeed, a 7m rise in sea levels would impact on vast areas of the UK, including most parts of London which border the Thames ie Canary Wharf, Chelsea and Westminster, all of which would need to be abandoned.”

The report also stresses that built infrastructure will need to be assessed for vulnerability and resilience to climate change.

“Masterplanning will need to consider alternative routes and extra capacity as well as build in redundancy, particularly in the case of rail where much of the infrastructure is sited on flood plains and coastal fringes. Within urbanised areas, comprehensive underground mass-transport systems will be susceptible to flooding,” it says.

Source: Third Sector

Liberal Democrat deputy leader says charities have a crucial role to play

The voluntary sector could play a crucial role in helping the UK to recover from recession – if it receives sufficient funding, according to Vincent Cable, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats.

“I expect you could be a critical voice because the private sector is paralysed and government is struggling,” Cable told delegates at the NCVO annual conference in London yesterday.

He warned that the sector faced a “scissors crisis”: a “quantum leap in expectations” coupled with threats to funding as central government passed financial problems on to local government, investments massively underperformed and donations from the wealthy fell.

“Much is expected of you,” he said. “Whether you can deal with the resource problem, I don’t know.”
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Source: Third Sector

Fifty-two per cent of charities surveyed now have green policies

The proportion of voluntary sector organisations with an environmental policy has almost doubled over the past 18 months, according to surveys by Every Action Counts, a coalition that provides advice and support on the issue to voluntary and community organisations.

The coalition, which received £4m from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to help charities reduce their impact on the environment, commissioned two ‘green office’ surveys.

The first, in 2007, found that 27 per cent of office-based organisations had an environmental policy. When the survey was repeated this year, the figure had increased to 52 per cent, from a sample of 188 respondents.

The surveys found other improvements. For example, 80 per cent of organisations said they recycled more waste products than they did 18 months ago and 54 per cent were reviewing and monitoring their energy use, compared with 39 per cent 18 months before.

“Voluntary organisations have made great progress in greening their office practices over the past 18 months,” said Mark Walton, head of programme at Every Action Counts.

But he warned the recession could prevent similar improvements in the future unless funding for green initiatives was found.

Source: Guardian Society

Charities are still surfing the wave of the boom years of economic growth. But new figures show that the recession will soon hit hardest those who are reliant on sales and contracts for income, writes David Brindle

Anxiety about the recession will preoccupy charity leaders at today’s annual conference of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). But a new analysis of income and assets in the voluntary sector suggests that certain charities have more cause to worry than others – and some should be very worried indeed.

The analysis has been carried out by the NCVO for its annual UK Civil Society Almanac, the 2009 edition of which is published today. It captures income and expenditure trends for 2006-07, before the credit crunch took hold, and therefore paints an overall rosy picture compared to current concerns. Income of the 171,000 “general” charities in the UK (excluding faith groups, private schools, mutuals and state-controlled charities) is shown to have risen 3.3% in real terms, or after inflation, on 2005-06 to a total £33.2bn. Spending stood at £31.2bn, also up 3.3%.

“It reflects a sector in relatively good health and at its peak before the economic downturn hit in 2007,” says Karl Wilding, the NCVO’s head of research.

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Source: Guardian Society

The voluntary sector’s response to the government’s £40m rescue package last week could only be described as muted. So wasn’t third sector minister Kevin Brennan surprised by the lack of uproar, given that the bail-out was a fraction of the amount asked for by charity leaders?

Brennan seems taken aback by the question. As he sees it, the action plan, with its emphasis on modernisation – another way of saying mergers – and additional funding for frontline services in deprived communities that have seen demand for service soar in the recession, reflects the priorities identified by the sector itself following a crisis meeting in November. “It was a good response,” Brennan insists. “The sector is realistic enough to know that we can’t meet every wish and desire.”

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Source: Third Sector

Anna Hirschfeld of the Ethical Property Foundation looks at the pros and cons of buying property.

As a finance director you will no doubt be watching the current economic events closely.  But, with the price of commercial property predicted to continue falling and interest rates currently so low, this could be the perfect time to buy.  This article aims to give you a rundown of the financial advantages and disadvantages to consider when going through the buying process.

There are clear advantages to purchasing; Mortgage repayments may be similar to rental payments on the same property, you will not be exposed to sudden rent increases and, with a fixed-rate mortgage, your monthly repayments will be predictable. You could sublet any free space, creating extra income. Interest payments on a commercial mortgage are tax-deductible and any rise in the value of the property will increase your capital.

However, there may also be major disadvantages to buying. You could be affected by interest rate rises and dips, and any decline in the value of the property will decrease your capital. You’ll also need to come up with a substantial deposit, and your options may be limited because it will be much harder to sell premises than find a new tenant. You will also be responsible for all maintenance, fixtures and fittings, insurance, decoration and security.

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Source: Third Sector

Triodos Bank reports sharp increase in loans to third sector organisations

Social lender Triodos Bank increased its lending to charities and social enterprises by more than 25 per cent in 2008.

The bank, which announced last week that its lending to third sector organisations had risen to £93m from £73m in 2007, also increased its total lending for the year to more than £200m for the first time.

Triodos said lending requests from the third sector had continued to be exceptionally high in early 2009.

Sue Cooper, leader of the Triodos social banking team, said part of the reason was that high-street lenders were reluctant to lend to the third sector. “This is not an easy time for the third sector,” she said. “Corporate and individual donations are dropping and many banks are simply taking a blanket view that the sector is too fragile financially to lend to.

“Triodos doesn’t hold that view. We believe there are strong opportunities for growth still out there.”

She said the rise in lending requests showed that social businesses were still optimistic about growth.

There were particular opportunities for growth in the health sector and for organisations interested in buying property, she added.

Source: Building Daily

The ODA is falling down on key sustainability criteria including a failure to ensure that venues meet required Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) “excellent.”

The designs for the aquatic centre currently only aim for a BREEAM “Very Good” rating, rather than the BREEAM “Excellent” required and the velopark does not include a reference to BREEAM at all, according to a report by the Commission for a Sustainable London (CSL) 2012, a watchdog.

“The commission has significant concerns over the incorporation of the BREEAM standards into contracts and also made recommendations that the ODA mitigate the risks of sustainability standards not being achieved through specific standards not being specified in contracts and by having a system to manage this through their supply chain,” said the organisation in their report, “Procuring a Legacy.”

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Source: Third Sector

nfrastructure organisation calls for charities to show they are meeting ‘changing needs’ caused by recession

All organisations funded by Capacitybuilders have been ordered to review their activities in light of the recession.

The non-departmental public body, which was set up to improve the voluntary sector’s infrastructure, revealed this week that it had asked grant holders to submit plans showing how their future work would meet “the changing needs of the sector and communities”.

Capacitybuilders said it was making an extra £1m available to local support organisations for schemes to help front-line charities survive the recession.

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