Looking at the longer-term impact

• Finnish municipality engaged in an ESCO project to improve the energy efficiency of buildings
• Oil heating was replaced with pellets and heat recovery was installed in schools
• Monitoring was performed for five years after the project and demonstrated the concrete savings achieved

Akaa in Finland set out to improve the energy efficiency of its municipal buildings by launching a special project based on the Energy Services Company (ESCO) model.

Construction waste is basically material loss that creates additional cost, and minimising waste generation directly improves the cost-efficiency of the project. Successful construction site waste management is a sum of many factors. This checklist covers many of these different factors:

Service model, an incentive to succeed

• A service agreement was made to improve the energy efficiency of a hospital from the 1960s
• Contractor carried out renovations and now monitors energy usage and savings (contract duration is 15 years)

In 2014, a hospital in Karlovac Croatia was renovated according to energy service company (ESCO) practices. The renovation was part of the larger Energy Renovation of Public Sector Buildings programme, adopted by the Croatian government.

Designing out waste is a concept of minimising the life cycle waste of a building by considering design options for reducing waste in each stage: construction, refurbishment, and demolition or deconstruction.

Better comfort and safety for the little ones

• Local government modernised thermal properties of a nursery
• Actions included new insulation and heating, and solar panels to increase renewable energy

The local government of Chmielnik in Poland modernised a state nursery in 2019. The original building was built in the 1950s and 1960s and was in poor condition. The building was renovated in 1998 but it still lacked modern heating installations. High energy losses were proving costly. 

Healthy approach to energy...

• World's first passive energy hospital
• Significant savings in operating costs are expected

Klinikum Frankfurt Hoechst is building the world’s first hospital to meet the passive house standards. The new building replaces the old and inefficient 1960s hospital and running costs are expected to reduce significantly.

Passive House is a building that does not require much conventional building heating on account of its thermal insulation and airtightness with very energy-efficient windows and ventilation system. Passive house uses more often electrical heating with air heat pump because of low heating energy consumption. However, a passive house can even be connected to a geothermal heat pump.

An impeccable outcome!

• A small Finnish sawmill invests in X-ray scanning technology to improve log sorting and ensure end-product quality
• The system has worked impeccably and raw material savings very soon exceeded expectations

The Mustola Timber sawmill in eastern Finland has 11 employees and a yearly production volume of 50 000 m3. Their goal is to steadily increase production. To achieve the full growth potential, they need to maximise the recovery rate of valuable raw material in production.

In a sawmill process, wood drying is a critical stage that can determine the end-product quality. When wood dries, it can suffer from bending, cracking, hardening or discoloration, and if not optimised, the drying stage can result in damaged products. Between 10-12 % of each kiln load can end up as reject wood due to distortion. At this stage, when the wood has already been cut and trimmed into nearly finished products, loss of material is especially costly. This can also cause drying to be a bottleneck in production.

Thinking holistic...

• Production development programme is key to continuous improvement in meat/food company
• It factors in production, materials and sustainability in a holistic approach

Finnish meat and food company Atria's main principle is continuous improvement. Atria's aim is to further improve its use of raw materials and resources like water and energy through a production development programme. The programme has been running for a few years.