by Brianna Crandall — March 5, 2018 — The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) recently announced the winners, including three double-winners, of this year’s CIBSE Building Performance Awards at a ceremony in London. The awards focus on the delivered actual performance outcomes achieved by buildings and projects, not on design-stage promises, notes the organization.
The University of Oxford won the coveted Building Performance Champion title and Facilities Management Team of the Year. Both awards were for its ambitious Carbon Reduction Programme, which sets out to reduce the university’s direct carbon emissions by 33% by 2020 against a 2005/6 baseline.
The judges were impressed with the program’s wide-ranging stakeholder engagement, which has resulted in a host of collaborative initiatives and new carbon-saving partnerships being developed between staff, students, the City Council and industry. They said:
The University of Oxford is leading the way for the higher education sector, not only in the global rankings of universities, but in the management of their extensive and diverse estate.
Elementa Consulting and BuroHappold Engineering were the evening’s other double winners. Elementa Consulting won the Building Performance Consultancy (up to 100 employees) and International Project of the Year for its engineering design of an ultra-low energy laboratory at Pomona College in California. BuroHappold Engineering triumphed in the Building Performance Consultancy (over 1000 employees) category and won the Energy Efficient Product or Innovation category for its NewMass cooling system.
Other 2018 CIBSE Building Performance Awards winners for projects or products include: Architype, BDP, Choice Housing Ireland, Energy Action, Landsec, Max Fordham, NPS North West, Q-Bot, and Willmott Dixon.
Best practices
Among the winners’ best practices/initiatives are:
- Consultancy services for 80+ Net Zero projects;
- Certification to the Fitwel rating system for occupant health and productivity;
- A post-occupancy evaluation process for all projects that includes the Soft Landings approach from the inception of a project;
- Implementing the WELL standard to enhance human health and well-being;
- Certification to the BREEAM green building standard;
- Using BIM for efficient project delivery;
- Smart buildings and controls; and many more.
CIBSE President Peter Y. Wong remarked:
The CIBSE Building Performance Awards increasingly stand for ethical, sustainable and environmentally sound business. Those organizations who take their commitment to energy management and healthy buildings seriously should be championed and their examples followed by others. I praise the good work of all of the finalists and winners and encourage others to follow their lead.
To read the full list of winners at the 2018 CIBSE Building Performance Awards, or to download the 2018 Winners Brochure and find out more about this year’s winners’ best practices in building performance and FM operations, visit the CIBSE Web site.
