Congratulations to Joan Ko (2006) who, in conjunction with Dr Dick Fenner (Centre for Sustainable Development), won the James Watt medal for 2009 by the Papers Panel of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
This is for their paper entitled “Adoption of energy efficiency innovations in new UK housing” which was recently published in the Institution Proceedings Energy Journal. The paper responds to the Government’s target to provide three million more homes in England by 2020 by examining why developers do not adopt energy efficiency measures more widely.
Joan says: “The paper was based on the research I did while finishing my Masters in Engineering for Sustainable Development. It gave me a real insight into how messy and complex it is to introduce new ways of doing things across an industry, and that’s what I’m tackling now at Arup. Right now, I’m managing a project to reduce carbon emissions from the UK construction industry by 15% by 2012. We’re working with companies, trade associations and the government. It’s an exciting and intense project with a short enough time line that I can see whether or not we’ll make a difference”.
Full details of the medal and paper are available from the Department of Engineering’s website.
