news from the BRE Group
published: 23/9/2014
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BRE research paper wins award at 2014 Water Efficiency Conference
Research project focussed on reducing water consumption in office buildings
The BRE project team won the prize for Best Industrial Paper this week at the 2014 Water Efficiency Conference. Water Efficiency in a Non-Domestic Building: Technical Versus Behavioural Change summarises the findings of a BRE Trust research project recently carried out by Steve Brown, Stuart Blofeld, Mindy Hadi and Lorna Hamilton to investigate water consumption in a non-domestic building.
The aim of the project was to gain an increased understanding of water use within a typical office environment and assess the effectiveness and impact of flow regulator valves on water consumption.
A behavioural change campaign was also carried out at the same time and it was found that this had a greater impact on reducing water use than the installation of flow regulator valves, particularly when building occupants were empowered by a group challenge to reduce consumption.
The paper concludes that water efficiency interventions, whether they be technical or behavioural, should be more carefully monitored before claiming buildings are water efficient. This is especially important in retrofitting situations, such as this research, where a low cost and easy to install approach is taken to increase the efficient use of water.
The Water Efficiency Conference is run by the Water Efficiency Network, funded by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The 2014 Water Efficiency Conference Proceedings which includes the BRE research paper are available to download here
For further information please contact Linda McKeown, BRE tel 01923 6645669, email mckeownl@bre.co.uk
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