Technically speaking
MBS recently sat down with CIBSE Technical Director Dr Anastasia Mylona to discuss her role in shaping the institution’s technical agenda and tackling key industry challenges.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your background in the industry and how you got involved with CIBSE?
A: I originally trained as an architect in Greece and came to the UK to focus on studying the environmental impact of buildings. I was interested in looking at the way that architectural design affects both energy efficiency and the interior environment.
My PhD – studied at the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff – focused on the energy and thermal implications of highly glazed buildings. I was looking at how to improve the thermal performance of these buildings as well as how to mitigate against solar gain.
After my PhD was awarded, I then spent two years at the University of Oxford looking at
the impact of climate change on buildings, sponsored by CIBSE. This led to CIBSE asking me to lead their environmental resources portfolio and ultimately to me joining CIBSE full-time as Head of Research. That was my position from 2011 until I was promoted to Technical Director in 2024.
Q: What do you think the future direction of travel will be for CIBSE’s research and technical work?
A: Increasingly our focus is to support the drive to reach the target of Net Zero carbon
emissions across the UK economy.
This is about much more than eliminating carbon emissions associated with buildings in use. We need to understand embodied carbon of buildings and create ways to regulate and reduce embodied carbon in order to create genuinely zero carbon buildings.
We also need to understand how climate change is going to affect buildings in the future so that we can design in resilience. For example, we know that climate change is warming the UK. This will lead to a reduction in energy used for heating but creates the potential to significantly increase the demand for energy to cool buildings. We need to focus on developing sustainable cooling strategies now so that we don’t create the conditions for mass air conditioning in the future.
CIBSE has a key role to play here in evaluating potential solutions and giving guidance on how they can be implemented. For example, would it be possible to use reversible heat pumps to provide both heating and cooling?
We see ourselves as being at the centre of communication between academia and practical engineering. We therefore focus on working collaboratively with the academic institutions and other professional bodies. We also see our international collaborations as being hugely important, enabling us to bring knowledge from research projects across the globe to inform the UK industry. For example, research projects in China and America are looking at low energy cooling technologies – reversible heat pumps but also radiant cooling systems that are far less energy intensive than standard air conditioning.
We need to have our finger on the international pulse – identifying future needs and technological trends, to make sure we are being proactive rather than reactive in our guidance and support.
Q: How is the shift towards zero carbon impacting traditional building services and performance?
A: Our historic focus has been on operational energy. We’ve made huge progress and I think it’s safe to say that we know how to design a building that produces no, or very low, carbon emissions in use.
The next stage in the journey is to understand whole life carbon. To get to Net Zero we need to eliminate emissions from every stage of a building: from the materials and the construction processes through the maintenance of the building and the end-of-life impact. This is the impact of the Net Zero agenda.
The entire industry is collaborating to understand how to achieve this goal and we are one of the principal organisations involved in producing the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard.
Q: What is the proposed Part Z of the Building Regulations amendment and what would it mean for embodied carbon?
A: The proposed Part Z of the Building Regulations focuses on embodied carbon. It goes without saying that we cannot deliver Net Zero carbon buildings without understanding and reducing embodied carbon. Introducing Part Z to the Building Regulations, by regulating the amount of embodied carbon in buildings, would give industry the incentive it needs to focus resource on reducing their whole life carbon emissions.
We were very disappointed that the proposed Future Homes and Buildings Standards did not address this requirement. Without regulation there is less incentive for the supply chain to start investing in reducing their embodied carbon or even in providing accurate calculations to give information on this key issue.
Q: How is CIBSE assisting building engineers in addressing challenges linked to a rapidly changing climate, both now and in the future?
A: Of course, the focus of all of our work here is to support our engineers with knowledge and guidance. However, as we move forward, towards an uncertain future, we are increasingly encouraged to use risk based analysis to steer best practice.
For example, we supply the weather data files for building simulation to the industry, indicating likely future weather patterns for each region in the UK. If we are to increase resilience, we need to understand the vulnerabilities of our buildings under multiple weather scenarios. Used judiciously, this information can help engineers design buildings and strategies that will cope with likely range of scenarios and extreme events.
Q: With a substantial number of individuals now returning to office based working should there be more of a focus on indoor air quality and its suggested links to productivity?
A: The Covid pandemic certainly turned a spotlight on the issue of indoor air quality (IAQ), revealing how many buildings had sub-optimal levels of natural ventilation and air quality. One result of the pandemic is that managers wanting to encourage staff back into their offices need to make those spaces attractive places to work. IAQ is about much more than just productivity – it’s about the bigger issue of health and wellbeing.
Q: How will next year’s new heat networks regulations impact performance standards in new and existing networks?
A: From 2025 heat networks are going to be regulated by Ofgem. This will ensure that there are consistent technical standards which will be applied to both existing and new heat networks. It will also make pricing and performance data more transparent and accessible. Over time this should make the concept of connecting a heat network more attractive.
Q: As Technical Director, what are your key goals and objectives for the year ahead?
A: A central objective for me is to create a five-year technical strategy, setting out how CIBSE can best grow its influence, expand its scope of work, supporting government and our international regions as well as our UK members.
I see an increasingly significant role for CIBSE in certification – providing expert and independent technical scrutiny. We already provide certification for embodied carbon calculations for manufacturers and have recently been appointed as the administrator for the NABERS environmental rating tool in the UK.
And finally, I have one very specific objective which is to make the Net Zero Carbon Building Standard successful. This will only be possible with close and committed collaboration between all the Professional Engineering Institutions to support the widespread implementation of the standard.
