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KIDDE SAFETY EUROPE LAUNCHES NEW VERSATILE CO2 MONITOR

Leading manufacturer of safety alarms and equipment, Kidde Safety Europe has launched a new carbon dioxide (CO2) monitor to help people to understand and improve indoor air quality in homes, workplaces, schools and hospitality venues. The mains powered non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) monitor complies with the Scottish Building Standards requirements for the mandatory CO2 monitors that must be installed in all homes. Kidde is a part of Carrier Global Corporation (NYSE: CARR), the leading global provider of healthy, safe, sustainable and intelligent building and cold chain solutions. 

 

Warning users of rising CO2 levels or abnormal humidity or temperature level changes, the new Kidde CO2 Monitor, which has a 10-year lifespan, provides the current CO2 levels from 400 to 5000 parts per million (PPM), as well as a seven day history of CO2 readings. It also shows the current temperature and humidity on the large, easy to read LCD display, which has automatic brightness adjustment to minimise night-time disturbance.

 

The monitor has been designed to provide clear warnings and indications in several different forms. Detailed air quality information is displayed on the LCD screen. As many people will not be familiar with the acceptable parts per million (PPM) for CO2, the Kidde CO2 monitor provides a ‘traffic light’ LED notification to allow easy identification of the current CO2 levels, even from a distance. Green represents 400 to 999 ppm – which signals good indoor air quality, Orange denotes readings of 1000 to 1499 ppm – indicating deteriorating indoor air conditions associated with poor air quality complaints, and Red displays for readings above 1500 ppm – the level associated with headaches, drowsiness and loss of concentration and where it is necessary to ventilate indoor space as a result. At this level, the monitor’s easily audible built-in alarm clearly alerts occupants to high CO2 levels. For clarity and convenience there is also an optional voice alert, which is available in six selectable languages.

 

The Kidde CO2 Monitor has been designed for easy set up and installation. It works straight out of the box with a built-in automatic 24 hour CO2 sensor calibration. The monitor is mains powered with a 12-hour rechargeable battery back-up and can be free-standing or wall mounted.

 

“From sick building syndrome to changes in building standards, to updated guidance for schools and workplaces, there has never been more of a focus on air quality, and in particular carbon dioxide,” said Simon Jones, Marketing Manager at Kidde Safety Europe. “CO2, which is often less commonly recognised as an issue compared with particulate matter pollution and carbon monoxide, can have a serious impact on health and wellbeing. Our new CO2 monitor has been designed to make it as simple as possible for people to be better informed about air quality in the spaces they occupy and allow improvements to be made.”

 

To find out more about Kidde’s range, please CLICK HERE

 

 

 

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Could achieving net-zero disrupt business as we know it?

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With government legislating for net-zero by 2050, what does this mean for UK energy markets and business models?

Getting to net-zero will require economy-wide changes that extend well beyond the energy system, leading to rapid and unprecedented change in all aspects of society.

Research published today by the UK Energy Research Centre shines a light on the level of disruption that could be required by some sectors to meet net-zero targets.

With many businesses making strong commitments to a net-zero carbon future, the report highlights the stark future facing specific sectors. Some will need to make fundamental change to their business models and operating practices, whilst others could be required to phase out core assets. Government may need to play a role in purposefully disrupting specific sectors to ensure the move away from high carbon business models, facilitating the transition a zero-carbon economy.

Sector specific impacts

The in-depth analysis presented in ‘Disrupting the UK energy systems: causes, impacts and policy implications’ focuses on four key areas of the economy, highlighting how they may need to change to remain competitive and meet future carbon targets.

Heat: All approaches for heat decarbonisation are potentially disruptive, with policymakers favouring those that are less disruptive to consumers. Since it is unlikely that rapid deployment of low carbon heating will be driven by consumers or the energy industry, significant policy and governance interventions will be needed to drive the sustainable heat transformation.

Transport: Following the ‘Road to Zero’ pathway for road transport is unlikely to be disruptive, but it is not enough to meet our climate change targets. The stricter targets for phasing out conventional vehicles that will be required will lead to some disruption. Vehicle manufacturers, the maintenance and repair sector and the Treasury may all feel the strain.

Electricity: Strategies of the Big 6 energy companies have changed considerably in recent years, with varying degrees of disruption to their traditional business model. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to continue to adapt to rapid change – or be overtaken by new entrants.

Construction: To deliver low-carbon building performance will require disruptive changes to the way the construction sector operates. With new-build accounting for less than 1% of the total stock, major reductions in energy demand will need to come through retrofit of existing buildings.

The report identifies how policy makers plan for disruptions to existing systems. With the right tools and with a flexible and adaptive approach to policy implementation, decision makers can better respond to unexpected consequences and ensure delivery of key policy objectives.

Prof Jim Watson, UKERC Director and Professor of Energy Policy, UCL said “The move to legislate for net-zero is welcome progress, but we need economy-wide action to make this a reality.
This includes policies that deliberately disrupt established markets and business models in some sectors – and address any negative impacts.”

Prof Jillian Anable, UKERC Co-Director and Professor of Transport and Energy, University of Leeds added “The UK transport sector is nearly 100% fuelled by fossil fuels, with only tiny niches of electrified and bio-fuelled vehicles.

Whilst politically challenging, the sector can only hope to reach ‘net-zero’ through whole-scale change that involves reducing hyper-mobility and fuel switching. This will lead to disruption to actors, global networks, governance and lifestyles.”

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Zero Waste Goal and CO2 Savings for SFS intec in Latest Sustainability Boost

Leading fastener manufacturer, SFS intec, has strengthened its position as one of the sustainability innovators in the roofing and cladding sector by implementing two new initiatives that significantly reduce the environmental impact of its Leeds HQ and production site.

The company, which is one of the world’s largest producers of fastening systems for the built environment, has just made a major investment to reduce energy consumption within its premises located close to Leeds city centre. Working in conjunction with its OEM customer Kingspan, SFS intec has installed a new ultra-low energy LED lighting system that will save 65 tonnes of CO2 per annum, in addition to providing a much brighter and more comfortable working environment for SFS personnel.

By removing the 349 original light fittings and replacing them with 155 low-energy LED lights, SFS intec is cutting its annual electricity consumption for lighting by nearly three quarters. The new LED lights allow for customised lighting levels which adapt to the amount of natural light entering the building through rooflights and windows.

In a separate programme to reduce its carbon footprint, SFS intec has also appointed a new partner to help it maximise recycling and eliminate landfill waste. Working with waste management specialist ACM Environmental PLC, new processes implemented right across the site will ensure all the company’s cardboard, dry mixed recyclables, wood, scrap metal and general waste is separated and sent to recycling plants, with none sent to landfill.

Luke Wood, QES Manager at SFS intec, who led both sustainability programmes, said “We’re always looking at utilising new technology, services and processes to ensure we’re operating in a sustainable way, guided by the three ‘P’s of sustainability – People, Planet and Profit.

“Cutting our energy consumption and waste help us to minimise our carbon footprint and maintain our position as an environmentally sustainable supply chain partner for all our built environment customers. Our next programme is looking at our consumption of gas for heating and to power our air-handling systems and, when implemented, could deliver even further CO2 savings.

“The fastening systems we manufacture and supply are often used in low and zero carbon buildings, so it is important for our customers to have confidence that each SFS intec product used is manufactured sustainably. That’s where we add value and give the industry a ‘greener’ choice.”

SFS intec manufactures a wide range of fastening systems for all types of roofing and cladding applications. The company is part of the Swiss-based SFS Group which has annual sales in excess of £1.1bn and a history dating back to the 1950s serving customers in the construction, automotive, electronics, industrial and medical products markets.

Full details about SFS intec are available at www.sfsintec.co.uk.
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British citizens rank 53rd in Environmental Impact study

A new study from price comparison website MoneySuperMarket visualises the way people across the world affect the environment

  • Britain has a greener population than France, Germany and the United States – but is only 16th in Europe for green living and 53rd worldwide
  • Air pollution in the UK is more than double that of the US – and linked to 40,000 early deaths a year

A new study from MoneySuperMarket today reveals how people impact their environment, both in the UK and throughout the world. The new research highlights the individual contribution to the world’s climate – as well as highlighting areas for improvement for each country.

Britain managed to rank 53rd overall for individual impact on the world*, boasting a greener population than France, Germany and the United States. Overall, the UK is only 14% worse on an average score than Mozambique, the top-scoring country for environmental awareness, and 51% better than Trinidad & Tobago, the worst.

But the country shows up poorly when it comes to energy usage – only 22 per cent of UK energy is green, so even low usage has a higher impact in the world compared to Bhutan or Albania, where energy is nearly 100% green.

The French perform even worse, with green power at a low-ranking 17 per cent of their total usage. They also throw away seven per cent more waste than the UK every day.

And while Ireland is near the bottom of the rankings (99th overall) due to high waste and mid-level wastewater treatment, our air pollution is more than double. The United States, too, rank lower than Britain at 101st, but their air pollution is only 2.9µg/m3, compared to our 7.6µg/m3. This air pollution is linked to over 40,000 early deaths in the UK a year**.

Britain Among the Worst in Europe for CO2

Despite somewhat positive overall standing for per-person CO2 emissions, the UK’s results are poor compared with much of Europe, with 71% of other continental countries producing less of the greenhouse gas per capita.

9% of the UK’s CO2 emissions emanate from the capital each year, with industrial contributions only 22% higher than domestic.

Landfill Concerns

Previous UK policies have attempted to reduce the size of landfill, with limited success. Only 25% of municipal waste in the UK is recycled, with 49% being sent directly to landfill.

The average British citizen throws away 1.79kg of municipal solid waste a day – a higher amount than 50% of other European countries, including Sweden and the Czech Republic, and higher than anywhere in South America or Asia, with the exclusion of Sri Lanka.

As well as being an eyesore and damaging to the immediate local environment, landfills produce copious quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the effect on global warming of CO2.

“We wanted to know what our personal input to the environment was,” said Stephen Murray, Energy Expert at MoneySuperMarket.com, “Everyone wants to get their carbon footprint down, but now we can see exactly how the UK compares to the rest of the world – it really puts it in perspective.”

Using the interactive map you can view the breakdown of the different measurements that make up the average individual human impact in each country, including energy consumption, air pollution and reliance on non-renewable energy, see the MoneySuperMarket human impact interactive map here.

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CO2: Don’t be neutral, be negative!

It is common knowledge that in order to effectively combat global warming caused by CO2, we need to make conscious efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. Given that buildings are accountable for 37% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions (according to the Committee on Climate Change) we have a duty as specifiers, architects and construction professionals to lower this alarming figure. Joe Bradbury of www.buildingspecifier.com investigates.

Going neutral isn’t enough

Whenever CO2 reduction is discussed, we often talk about becoming carbon neutral, i.e. designing or retrofitting our building to use only as much atmospheric CO2 as it emits, leaving existing levels intact. However, approximately 30 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide is pumped into the Earth’s atmosphere from power plants, vehicles and various other industrial sources which are intensively fuelled from the burning fossil fuels. So, whilst going neutral can certainly help the problem, it’s a mere drop in the ocean in terms of fighting climate change.

We therefore need to not only focus on reducing how much CO2 we produce, but also on how we can physically remove it from the air.

Capturing CO2

Allison Dring, head of start-up Elegant Embellishments, has designed a smog-eating façade that is a perfect example of how a building can go a step further and actually become carbon negative. Described on the BBC, “The façade is coated with a special paint made from titanium dioxide, a pollution-fighting technology that is activated by daylight. It absorbs the fumes generated from traffic and converts them first into nitric acid and then into calcium nitrate, which is harmless.”

The facade has currently been fitted on the side of a hospital in Mexico City, where pollution is a massive issue. Since being added to the building, the innovative façade has allegedly reduced pollution of around 1,000 cars per day, perhaps resulting in less people needing to visit the hospital in the first place!

Allison is a staunch advocate of the idea that the materials we build with should actively give something back to the environment – and so am I.

Watch the below video to see more:

Putting it to good use

Becoming carbon negative is a two stage process; consuming the CO2 is only the first part of the solution. What do you do with the CO2 once it has been captured from the air? Turning it into usable materials or less harmful gasses is the key to becoming truly carbon negative and actually being an asset to the environment.

Atmospheric CO2 is one of the biggest issues of the 21st century… however, as the old adage “one man’s waste is another man’s treasure” implies, it is also a precious resource! We can use the CO2 taken from the air and convert it into useful carbon-based products, such as building materials, pharmaceuticals, fuels and plastics.

Not only do these products help us as an industry, but the very creation of them absorbs more CO2 than we emit, ergo reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. Now THAT is a solution.
So in short, when it comes to tackling climate change in the built environment, be negative!

What materials or technologies are you using in your building to reduce CO2 emissions? We’d love to hear from you – let us know in the comments section below.

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