A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value, in economic, social, cultural or other contexts. For a business, it describes the specific way in which it conducts itself, spends, and earns money in a way that generates profit. The process of business model construction and modification is also called business model innovation and forms a part of business strategy.
Appropriate technology is a movement encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, affordable by locals, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable, and locally autonomous. It was originally articulated as intermediate technology by the economist Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher in his work Small Is Beautiful. Both Schumacher and many modern-day proponents of appropriate technology also emphasize the technology as people-centered.
David William Pearce OBE was Emeritus Professor at the Department of Economics at University College London (UCL). He specialised in, and was a pioneer of, environmental economics, having published over fifty books and over 300 academic articles on the subject, including his 'Blueprint for a Green Economy' series.
In the construction industry, the 1:5:200 rule is a rule of thumb that states that:
If the initial construction costs of a building is 1, then its maintenance and operating costs over the years is 5, and the business operating costs is 200.
Design management is a field of inquiry that uses design, strategy, project management and supply chain techniques to control a creative process, support a culture of creativity, and build a structure and organization for design. The objective of design management is to develop and maintain an efficient business environment in which an organization can achieve its strategic and mission goals through design. Design management is a comprehensive activity at all levels of business, from the discovery phase to the execution phase. "Simply put, design management is the business side of design. Design management encompasses the ongoing processes, business decisions, and strategies that enable innovation and create effectively-designed products, services, communications, environments, and brands that enhance our quality of life and provide organizational success." The discipline of design management overlaps with marketing management, operations management, and strategic management.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of green buildings, homes, and neighborhoods, which aims to help building owners and operators be environmentally responsible and use resources efficiently.
The Latham Report, titled Constructing the Team, was an influential report written by Sir Michael Latham, published in July 1994. Latham was commissioned by the United Kingdom government and industry organisations to review procurement and contractual arrangements in the UK construction industry, aiming to tackle controversial issues facing the industry during a period of lapse in growth as a whole.
The Design Quality Indicator (DQI) is a toolkit to measure, evaluate and improve the design quality of buildings.
David Michael Gann CBE is a British academic administrator and civil engineer. He is Vice-President (Innovation) at Imperial College London and a member of the College's Executive Board. His academic research spans strategy, management science and systems engineering. He is Vice-Chair at Villars Institute.
The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology is a Swiss research institution for application-oriented materials science and technology. It has three locations – Dübendorf, St. Gallen and Thun. As part of the ETH Domain, it is assigned to the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER). For more than 100 years since its foundation in 1880, Empa has been a material testing institute. Since the late 1980s, it has increasingly transformed into an interdisciplinary research institute for materials and technologies.
Science and technology in Morocco has significantly developed in recent years. The Moroccan government has been implementing reforms to encourage scientific research in the Kingdom. While research has yet to acquire the status of a national priority in Morocco, the country does have major assets that could transform its R&D sector into a key vehicle for development. The industry remains dominated by the public sector, with the universities employing 58% of researchers. Morocco's own evaluation of its national research system – carried out in 2003 – revealed that the country has a good supply of well trained high quality human resources and that some laboratories are of very high quality. However, the greatest gap at that point of time lied in the link between research and innovation. The educational qualifications of Moroccan researchers have increased significantly since the early 1990s. The University of Al-Karaouine is considered the oldest continuously operating academic degree-granting university in the world.
The Egan Report, titled Rethinking Construction, was an influential report on the UK construction industry produced by an industry task force chaired by Sir John Egan, published in November 1998. Together with the Latham Report, Constructing the Team, produced four years earlier, it did much to drive efficiency improvements in UK construction industry practice during the early years of the 21st century.
Constructing Excellence is a United Kingdom construction industry membership organisation created in 2003, the only such which draws its member organisations from across the industry supply chain, ranging from clients, through contractors and consultants, to suppliers and manufacturers of building materials and components. Constructing Excellence attempts to apply the reforms recommended in the 1994 Latham and 1998 Egan Reports, having absorbed several bodies established following those reports. In August 2016, Constructing Excellence became part of BRE, but retains its identity and core purposes.
The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, formerly the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership and the Cambridge Programme for Industry, is part of the School of Technology within the University of Cambridge.
The German National Platform for Electric Mobility is an advisory council of the German Federal Government for electric vehicle introduction. It consists of the top representatives of industry, politics (6), science (3), associations (3) and unions (1). It was officially established on 3 May 2010 during a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel. Its task is to push on the National Development Plan for Electric Mobility. The goal for 2020 of the NPE is to develop Germany to the leading supplier and lead market for electric mobility and to gain an employment effect of 30,000 additional jobs.
The Technology Innovation Agency was created by an act of the South African parliament on 24 November 2008.
A circular economy is a model of resource production and consumption in any economy that involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible. The concept aims to tackle global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution by emphasizing the design-based implementation of the three base principles of the model. The three principles required for the transformation to a circular economy are: designing out waste and pollution; keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems." CE is defined in contradistinction to the traditional linear economy. The idea and concepts of a circular economy have been studied extensively in academia, business, and government over the past ten years. It has been gaining popularity because it can help to minimize carbon emissions and the consumption of raw materials, open up new market prospects, and, principally, increase the sustainability of consumption.
Richard Gilbert Saxon CBE is an English architect. He was chairman of Building Design Partnership (BDP), chairman of BE, a vice-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (2002-2008), Master of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects (2005-2006), president of the British Council for Offices (1995-1996) and Chairman of the Joint Contracts Tribunal. He was awarded CBE in 2001 for services to British architecture and construction.
Precise definitions of sustainable construction vary from place to place, and are constantly evolving to encompass varying approaches and priorities. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines sustainable construction as "the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction." The Netherlands defines sustainable construction as "a way of building which aims at reducing (negative) health and environmental impacts caused by the construction process or by buildings or by the built-up environment." More comprehensively, sustainability can be considered from three dimension of planet, people and profit across the entire construction supply chain. Key concepts include the protection of the natural environment, choice of non-toxic materials, reduction and reuse of resources, waste minimization, and the use of life-cycle cost analysis.
The Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) was a partnership between the University of Cambridge and UK's Department for Business, Energy and Industry Strategy. The CDBB was established in 2017 to support the transformation of the UK built environment using digital technologies to better design, build, maintain and integrate assets. Prior to its closure in March 2022, it was the home of the UK BIM programme, begun by the UK BIM Task Group (2011-2017), and the National Digital Twin programme.
