ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 195

International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy Session III A CLOSER LOOK AT SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES: LESSONS FROM THE UK Yumn Nanaa1 & Hasim Altan1 1 Sustainable Design of the Built Environment, Faculty of Engineering & IT, British University in Dubai, UAE, [email protected] / [email protected] Abstract Sustainable development is becoming an increasingly rising topic all around the world. The more developed countries contribute, the greatest share to innovations and solutions, as they are more aware of such global issues, and have more mitigations and legislative abilities to propose solutions. The study is a closer look at the United Kingdom as a case study, and the environmental issues the country has faced, with a look from the environmental perspective. The major challenges are about energy, waste disposal, water scarcity, climate change, and other challenges like employing sustainable codes on buildings since there is a substantial amount of the UK’s emissions that come from existing buildings, which are responsible for 44% of the country’s CO2 emissions. Moreover, the paper analyses its current standing in terms of past and current environmental practices and the impact on its local and global future sustainability. The UK was selected as a case study due to being one of the pioneers in the field and a leading country in the field of science, architecture, and urban planning, a history of success and world records. In this paper, the current problems, causes, and challenges have been identified, reviewed and discussed. Furthermore, energy security is also examined as a country that is dependent on imported gas relies on political situations, and renewable energy proposes its own challenges of application in such a cold climate. As planners and sustainable designers, when assessing sustainable practices and setting standards for any climate/ country, looking around for similar situations, or ones that are more advanced, and analysing the parameters of the sustainability matrix will always be of utmost help to build up new regulations, and learn the lessons from previous experiences. Keywords Existing Buildings, Energy Performance, Sustainable Built Environment, Sustainability, UK, Policies and Regulations. 193