a b s t r a c tEnergy efficiency regulations for buildings often focus solely on operational and thermal energy demands. Increasing a building's thermal energy efficiency is most often undertaken by increasing insulation thickness and installing high performance windows. These measures can result in a significant increase in embodied energy which is currently not considered in the majority of existing building energy regulations.This study uses a case study house in Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia to investigate the life cycle primary energy repercussions of increasing building energy efficiency levels over 50 years. It uses the comprehensive hybrid approach and a dynamic software tool to quantify embodied and operational energy, respectively. It considers material and design-related changes in order to improve energy efficiency as well as a combination of both.Results show that while increasing the envelope thermal energy performance yields thermal operational energy savings, these can be offset by the additional embodied energy required for supplementary insulation materials and thermally efficient windows. The point at which supplementary insulation materials do not yield life cycle energy benefits is just above current minimum energy efficiency requirements in Australia. In order to reduce a building's life cycle energy demand, more comprehensive regulations are needed. These should combine embodied and operational energy and emphasise design strategies.
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Innovation is critical to technological progress and has many theories to explain its processes. Organised competition has been shown empirically to provide an alternative pathway for innovation within an industry, increasing innovation rates and radicalness. This research introduces and develops the new staged competition innovation theory which builds on the well-understood diffusion of innovation theory and the Technology–Organisation–Environment framework to explain how decision-making and technological, organisational, and environmental characteristics of industry-based competition can drive innovation activity. The new theory comprises three principles that demonstrate how a well-designed staged competition provides: (1) a unique innovation mechanism away from parent industry constraints, (2) a unique agile environment that can increase innovation development, and (3) a return pathway for adoption back to the parent industry. Principle 2 addresses the specific competition environment criteria required to drive innovation, beginning with a co-dependency between organiser and teams in providing team confidence and a mutually beneficial outcome for both parties. Relative advantage drives teams to innovate by generating competitive pressure, while a variable solution space due to competition specific rules and competition brief clarity direct innovation efforts. Finally, competition repetition provides ongoing innovation transfer between teams within the competition and to the parent industry.
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