Take the Airfix approach to low-carbon building technologies

25 April 2011

When I was a boy, I painstakingly brought Airfix model aircraft kits to life. One of the lessons I learned was that following the assembly sheet was the quickest way to success and ensured that you didn’t have your engines on back to front.

I am now consumed by a slightly more sophisticated passion developing the lighting of the future. Using printable electronics, my team is developing solid-state organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) that are capable of running on a 5VDC battery at a fraction of the energy usage of incandescent light bulbs.

This technology is one important piece in the carbon-reduction ’Airfix kit’ that the government is developing. Investment in renewable energy production, emerging battery technologies, breakthroughs in smart sensor technology, innovations in building materials, and photovoltaic cells in windows are all intricate pieces that will be brought together in the buildings of the future.

But while we are working towards delivering sustainable and affordable products that will make up these buildings, there is growing concern about the lack of an ’assembly sheet’ that maps out how all the technologies will work together.

The current government inherited a product-led approach to investment in R&D. This is a good way to get innovations out of the lab and into commercial testing but there comes a point where we need to mould these products into a tangible outcome in this case, fully functioning, carbon-neutral buildings with reduced energy needs.

“Why should we expect carbon-neutral building constructions to emerge in an ad hoc way?”

Politicians need to begin focusing on the challenges and act on the responsibilities that lie in their remit to drive change. In my sphere, this is about using technological advancements to reduce carbon emissions effectively in a manner that doesn’t just throw money at potential solutions but also creates a blueprint for what this will look like in the future. By doing so, we can see how our products will dovetail with others and will also set the framework for architects and other specifiers to turn the potential into reality.

This need not be arduous or take years of consultancy to achieve. The use of focused national strategies and funding for businesses to encourage research labs and academics to work together will ensure the UK meets its 2020 obligations for energy consumption and CO2 footprint reductions.

The government can learn a great deal from the aerospace industry. That sector would never set out to build an aircraft on the off chance that the integrated technologies will work together in an optimised, safe way. So, why should we expect high-technology carbon-neutral/negative building constructions to emerge in an ad hoc way?

On 3 March, environment secretary Chris Huhne gave a speech that demonstrates that the government understands the impact that housing is having on energy consumption but has yet to get to grips with the role that the technology it is currently funding will play in addressing this issue.

The government’s focus is on heating and its solution is to put the onus on home owners to address the problem with support from its Green Deal. This is more of a sticking plaster on our ageing housing stock than it is a considered solution to reducing our appetite for energy consumption and a subsequent cut in emissions.

So, I would encourage the government to think instead about my Airfix models. We are making the parts, but we need the assembly sheet to make sure the UK leads the way in the carbon-neutral, reduced-energy buildings of the future.