Städte             Ferne Länder

Sheep in Scotland are something really special. Even if the land with the highest sheep per inhabitant ratio is New Zealand there are MANY sheep in Scotland!

It is fascinating when you drive through the country and see all these little white dots everywhere around you! And as typical as the sheep are the little stone walls that should actually keep the sheep within the walls. But that is just a theory; driving around you will notice that the sheep do not care at all about these stone walls and walk on the streets in particular in the highlands and on the western islands.

The problem is that sheep have always and everywhere the right of way in Scotland, so if one is hurt by a car you have to find out the farmer and tell him about the accident immediately otherwise the consequences can be unpleasant…

Sheep are not only reared for the meet – even if there are loads of nice typical British dishes made of lamb or mutton, e.g. Shepherds’ Pie, Roast lamb, Lamb Stew, …

Another product from sheep is the wool – lots of products are made from sheep’s wool, in particular clothing like knitwear, jumpers, socks,…

But did you know that wool is also very helpful to tackle oil spills and prevent animals to be poisoned by the oil spill?

Another interesting fact is the new development of using sheep’s wool as insulation material in the building and construction sector. Especially in terms of the new green agenda public becomes more conscious about environmental friendly decisions. The building industry is the biggest consumer of resources in particular energy and raw material. Due to the growing population in the world, which is expected to increase by about 50% from about 6 billion to over 9 billion people between 2005 and 2035, the exploitation of resources and pollution especially by the emission of greenhouse gases is predicted to increase even more. The building sector in the United States uses the largest amount of material by weight and pollutes significantly the earth’s environment.

Therefore a big goal is to support a more sustainable development when planning and designing new cities and buildings. Insulation plays an important role in this field, with help of better insulation the operating energy of a building can be reduced by about 50% by better insulation – this does not only save energy it also saves a lot of money!

The new focus next to operating energy lies on the embodied energy of building material which is sequestered over the different stages of a products life cycle from raw material extraction to the disposal. The embodied energy can be compared by taking density, thermal conductivity and actual thickness of the material into account by comparing the embodied energy of the material needed to meet a certain functional unit, e.g. insulation of 1m² loft achieving a mandatory u-value of 0.16 W/m²K (UK building regulations). Sheep’s wool is a very good alternative to conventional insulation material like mineral wool in terms of embodied energy. However, the picture changes completely as soon as the embodied carbon is compared. The biggest factor is methane – including methane emissions of sheep in the considerations the embodied carbon of sheep’s wool is extremely high compared to conventional alternatives.

So lambs are not only cute – there are quite a lot of aspects why you should deal with them!