Editorial
Special issue on Sustainable energy
technologies and low-carbon buildings: the
case of UK and India
..............................................................................................................................................................
Accelerated climate change, caused by the release of greenhouse
gases (mainly CO2) into the atmosphere, is manifesting itself in
the warming world through increasingly extreme weather events
and escalating rates of change. Since the launch of the Fourth
Assessment Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) in 2007, which confirmed that global climate
change is ‘very likely’ to have a human cause [1], scientific
research on climate change and its impacts is revealing that
global warming is accelerating, at times far beyond the IPCC
2007 forecasts. For instance, a WWF report published in 2008
giving a European update of climate science confirmed that
‘climate change is faster, stronger and sooner’ [2]. At the same
time, one of the world’s leading climate change scientist
Dr James Hensen from NASA has confirmed that the bar for
acceptable levels of CO2 in the atmosphere should be lowered to
350 ppm, possibly lower, if we are to avert catastrophic climate
change. We are currently at 385 parts per million by volume
( p.p.m.v.) and increasing at about 2 p.p.m.v. annually [3]. At the
same time, we are also facing a recession and economic decline.
This growing concern over the issue of mitigating the worst
impacts of climate change is reflected in the use of the term
‘sustainable energy’, which includes sources with relatively long
life and relatively low impacts [4]. The implication is that the
long-term availability of energy sources is not the only issue.
What also matters is that they can be used into the future
without damaging the planet’s climate and ecosystem, or
indeed the human social system, i.e. their use must be socially
and environmentally sustainable. At the same time, technol-
ogies that run on sustainable energy have to be evaluated
within the built environment, as energy used in buildings for
heating, lighting and ventilation is responsible for half the CO2
emissions especially in industrialized countries such as UK and
about 30% in rapidly developing countries such as India [5].
Therefore, globally, a pressing need is to ensure that the
additions to the building stocks in developing countries are
built to high standards as this is where about 80% of people
will live. As in developed countries, programmes for dealing
with existing buildings need swift advancement.
In recognition of this, the Climate Change Act of 2008 legally
commits the UK government to reduce CO2 emissions by 80%
International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies 2009, 4, 132– 133
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by 2050 [6]. The government has also set an ambitious target of
making all new domestic building ‘zero carbon’ by 2016 and all
new non-domestic buildings ‘zero-carbon’ by 2019 [7].
Technically, ‘zero carbon’ means that, over a year, the net carbon
emissions from energy use in a building would be zero. The UK
government has also recently consulted on its ‘Heat and Energy
Saving Strategy’ that sets out an aim for emissions from all exist-
ing buildings to be approaching zero by 2050 [8]. On the other
hand, in India, the construction industry is growing annually at
a rate of 9.2% when compared with the global average of 5.5%.
Moreover, it is predicted that by 2020, about 40% of India’s
population will be living in cities, as against 28% today [9]. This
is why building energy efficiency is emerging as a priority area
for the Government of India, considering the growth that is
taking place in the Indian building sector. In fact, in May 2007,
the Government’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) launched
the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) to provide
minimum requirements for the energy-efficient design and con-
struction of buildings [10]. The Code is mandatory for commer-
cial buildings or building complexes that have a connected load
of 500 kW and applicable to all buildings with a conditioned
floor area of 1000 m2 (10 000 ft.2) or greater [11].
Importantly, UK and India are global players in science and
technology with an international reputation for cutting-edge
research and innovation. And given the concern of climate
change and the role of the building sector, both countries need
to build substantially on emerging areas of scientific research,
particularly sustainable energy technologies and low-carbon
building to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.
To meet these objectives, the British Council in Delhi with
Oxford Brookes University (Oxford, UK) and the Indian
Institute of Technology (Delhi, India), held a UK–India Young
Scientists Networking Conference on Sustainable energy technol-
ogies and low-carbon buildings for climate change mitigation to
promote networking of young research scientists in both
countries by providing a forum for exchange of scientific knowl-
edge and information. The conference was held in Delhi from 6
to 8 February 2008, and was chaired by Dr Rajat Gupta from the
Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development at Oxford Brookes
University, and Professor G.N. Tiwari from the Centre for Energy
132

Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology. The event was by
invitation only and brought together 35 experts and postdoc-
toral/PhD researchers from the UK and India, who discussed and
learned from the leading-edge research, application and delivery
of emerging sustainable energy technologies and low-carbon
buildings in the developed and developing world.
The residential venue for the conference encouraged serious
scientific discussion and debate among the delegates well
beyond the papers presented. It was realized that a move
towards low-carbon society must be based on incorporation of
a multi-disciplinary approach, which addresses cultural, behav-
ioural and political aspects of solutions as much as the science
itself. As a result of the event, research networks have devel-
oped among young scientists to advance research in the field
of low-carbon systems, energy-efficient retrofitting of the exist-
ing buildings and post-occupancy building evaluation.
This special issue of the International Journal of Low-Carbon
Technologies brings together selected evidence-based research
papers from this key conference related to strategies, sustainable
energy technologies, approaches and toolkits for achieving low-
carbon buildings. The selected papers were carefully chosen
by the editors in consultation with the organizing committee
of the conference, for development into journal articles and
then placed through an independent refereeing process. These
incisive papers are intended to represent cutting-edge issues, as
well as reflect the depth and diversity of the subject-matter.
The aim of this special edition is not just to map the
advanced research taking place in the field of sustainable energy
and low-carbon buildings in UK and India, but to also explore
their structure, underlying assumptions and their limitations.
For instance, the paper by Gupta describes the development
and application of a bottom-up, house-by-house GIS-based
approach for carbon reduction in Oxford city; while the paper
by Chow investigates whether a district energy supply can be a
cost-effective measure in meeting UK’s domestic zero-carbon
targets. At the same time, low-carbon buildings that overheat
are a concern for occupants, owners, building professionals and
wider society. In this context, the paper by Jenkins is very
timely and investigates the importance of office internal heat
gains in reducing cooling loads in a warming climate of UK.
Clearly, embodied energy is as important as operational
energy in buildings, especially in countries like India where the
rate of new-build is high. This is why the paper by Reddy
focuses on the Indian building industry and shows nearly 50%
reduction in embodied energy of buildings using alternative
building systems, when compared with the conventional way of
building. Some of these building systems are derived from the
vernacular, and the paper by Srivastav and Jones aptly investi-
gates passive design strategies that were used in traditional
buildings across India and assesses their potential in modern
design to create a liveable, if not always a comfortable, indoor
environment. As the debate on achieving zero-carbon buildings
Editorial
in UK gains further momentum, the paper by Gupta and
Chandiwala is timely and describes the development, appli-
cation and analysis of an interactive user-friendly toolkit,
which facilitates the assessment of the energy/carbon impact
and financial viability of achieving low- and zero-carbon
homes using the Code for Sustainable Homes. The paper
emphasizes the importance of maximizing energy efficiency
improvements to the fabric and types of a dwelling, before
adding low-/zero-carbon systems, and promotes a ‘low-energy
first and then low-carbon’ approach.
It is hoped that the range of papers in this special issue on
Sustainable energy technologies and low-carbon buildings for
climate change mitigation will enable experts in UK and India
to share their best practice on carbon reduction to the wider
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research community across the world.
Dr Rajat Gupta
Guest Editor
Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development
Oxford Brookes University
UK
REFERENCES
[1] IPCC. Mitigation: Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth
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[3] Hensen J, Sato M, Kharecha P, et al. Target Atmospheric CO2: Where
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