The manufacturing industry is increasingly accountable for the environmental impact resulting from its activities. Research indicates that specific production processes within manufacturing plants generate significant environmental impact through energy consumption. To understand the consumption of energy in a production environment, it is necessary to outline the energy flow within the facility, along with the classification of energy usage and its relationship to processes and production outputs. It is also important to identify auxiliary (non-value added) energy within production as the area with the greatest potential for savings through changes in operational behaviour. This article introduces a practical process mapping methodology that combines energy management with value stream mapping. The methodology is based on 'Lean' manufacturing principles and on application to a couple of industry use cases has been shown to successfully illustrate the relationship between the energy usage and production activities for a particular value stream. Furthermore, the significant energy users in relation to the actual production process steps have been identified, and energy reduction opportunities of 42% and 50% have been quantified.

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This paper discusses information from a research project investigating a new approach to designing energy positive buildings that integrate renewable energy generation into the building fabric. Such buildings can help reduce energy consumption and associated carbon emissions, alleviating fuel poverty and lessening the need for costly grid upgrades. The main purpose of this study is to highlight the current status of the UK construction industry and the need for improvements, which have been documented over the years. Several enablers for the construction industry to change are identified, including collaborative procurement methods, building information modelling (BIM), innovation and energy positive buildings. The key findings from the review provide evidence that the energy positive solutions put forward in this research project, linking collaboration, innovation and buildings with reduced energy use and carbon emissions, could be used to improve the overall performance of the construction industry. This provides a good knowledge base for the next phase of the research, which includes interviews and workshops with construction industry stakeholders to further identify the challenges, benefits and drawbacks of the potential building integrated energy positive solutions. The combined body of information gleaned from this literature review, the feedback from construction industry stakeholders, and case studies of energy positive buildings designed by the first author, will be used to aid the development of the proposed outcomes of the research project, which will include a continuous improvement tool, the case studies themselves and the development of an innovation portal.