The environment is under threat; our resources are being drained.
And where is this threat coming from? The construction industry, while not solely responsible, has a major part to play.
Nearly half of all CO2 emissions are caused by the construction industry, topped off by massive contributions to water pollution, landfill waste, air pollution and energy consumption.
Where does all this damage come from?
The construction industry is the largest consumer of natural resources in the world, and by some margin. Reports from decades past show that around 75% of all natural resource use was put into construction. That consumption has only increased. By 2060, predictions are that the number of natural resources consumed by the construction industry around the world will double.
Natural resources need to be extracted, transported, reshaped, installed, and the waste created has to be disposed of. All of these factors have the propensity to impact the environment in a very negative way.
Is the Snake Eating Its Own Tail?
The construction industry’s monumental impact on the environment is so damaging it threatens to destroy the very world it relies on to thrive. As resource demands rise, the negative impacts that construction has on the environment only increases.
Emissions go up, finite resources are consumed at faster rates, and the condition of the environment continues to deteriorate. Failure to take care of the environment from which it sources its materials means the construction industry faces a world where construction itself becomes completely unsustainable.
There is only one solution.
As the population continues to expand, we cannot stop the progression of infrastructure. Instead, for the environment to stand a chance of survival, we must change how this infrastructure develops.
According to the United Nations, climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. Research by Frontiers.org suggests that by 2100, the effects of climate change and pollution could be so catastrophic that 30% of the human population may be lost to its direct effects. These effects range from deadly heat waves and toxic air pollution to soil degradation and famine.
To put that into perspective, 30% of the population is 2.4 billion people. To put that into even greater perspective, 3 million deaths were attributed to COVID-19 as of April 2021. That’s 0.125% of the potential climate change death toll. Nobody is trying to suggest that the Coronavirus outbreak is not a disaster for humanity, but simply that climate change is set to be something vastly more destructive.
The construction industry is a big part of the problem, which means it is not only harming itself, but also the entire planet as well. In this look at sustainability, our experts tackle the risks of climate change, and provide insight into how construction can make changes to sustainability to benefit us all.
Sustainable Construction: Taking Tentative Steps
Sustainability doesn’t have to start with dramatic, sweeping changes to supply chains and business-wide practices. Pushback to adaptation is expected. So to help weather the storm and demonstrate the beneficial impacts that there are to be had, it can help to start with smaller sustainability initiatives.
The introduction of paperless workspaces and recycling plans are simple ways to introduce sustainability into business culture, helping to springboard wider-reaching initiatives.
It can help to make your impact real and palpable. Share statistics on how many trees you’ve saved or how many tons of plastic you’ve recycled. Build a bigger picture and get your workforce and consumers engaged in the concept and understand they are making a difference by being involved.
77% of people want to live more sustainably. If you can make this part of their professional lives, they will respond.
Working With Sustainable Materials
Construction is all about materials; thus, improving sustainability in construction will invariably involve making sure that the materials used are as sustainable as possible.
Metals, including steel, have a high impact due to the impact of their extraction and production, and their disposal. Concrete is another major problem. Used in the majority of construction projects, 70% of people live within a concrete structure, making it the second most consumed resource on the planet after water. Unlike water, however, consuming concrete involves many industrial processes, which are very harmful to the environment. For example through the high-energy usage associated with its manufacture, and the contribution this makes to climate change.
With the traditional construction materials of metals and concrete proving highly unsustainable, going green in construction means finding alternatives. Timber — sustainably sourced — has the lowest environmental impact of any construction material. There are also eco-friendly alternatives and versions of concrete, including ‘green concrete’, which is recycled from byproducts of other industries.
Going sustainable in construction often means thinking outside the box and working with less common materials that reduce or eliminate environmental damage and do not rely on finite resources or fossil fuels to produce.
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Sustainable Construction Means Sustainable Contractors
Your supply chain is at the heart of your sustainability program. Sustainability in construction means not only taking responsibility for your internal eco-friendly practices but those of the contractors that provide you with your services and materials.
Sustainability accreditation is by far the simplest and easiest way to ensure your contractors are working to source your goods and services in ways that conform to environmental practices. Accreditation demonstrates commitments to sustainability, which streamlines contractor procurement and prevents your business from being misled about the environmental practices of your supply chain.
When looking to source sustainable materials from contractors, accreditation compliance is a must.
How to Use Value Engineering for Sustainable Construction
Value engineering is far from a new concept. It’s standard industry practice to optimise the engineering of a building for cost savings both during the construction phase and throughout its lifetime. Where this concept is slightly more alien, however, is its use in optimising a project to provide greater value to sustainability.
Value engineering for sustainability looks into how the construction of a building can provide value to your sustainability goals. You can seek to engineer your projects to incorporate more sustainable materials, adjusting designs to match the limitations of certain resources. You can also think about how a building can be engineered to protect the environment, including developing as much green space as possible and incorporating ecological areas like gardens, areas for flowers and so on.
There are many project examples available that showcase how architecture can mix with agriculture to create a building that is both a practical and usable space and provides true environmental benefits.
True Sustainable Construction Means No Compromises
A report published by the Technical University of Catalonia provided a stark insight into the fact that many sustainable buildings are inherently unsustainable. While they may have made strides towards eco-friendly longevity in terms of structural maintenance and energy consumption, the production of the building was only achieved through exploitation of the natural world and its resources. Additionally there are no plans for disposal once the building reaches the end of its life.
Sustainability should not come at the sacrifice of sustainability. This is to say; we cannot build sustainable buildings if the buildings are made from unsustainable resources or cannot be demolished, decommissioned or repurposed in a sustainable way. Poor material extraction and production practices are not offset by lower energy consumption long term, and there are just too many other environmental impacts involved.
In a mission statement by the UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC) — a charity that focuses on sustainability within construction — the non-profit organisation outlined its vision changes to the construction industry by 2027. As part of their core strategy, the UK-GBC outlined 5-points of improvement, which were:
- Mitigating and adapting to climate change
- Eliminating waste and maximising resource efficiency
- Embracing and restoring nature and promoting biodiversity
- Optimising the health and wellbeing of people
- Creating long-term value for society and improving quality of life.
The vision of the UK-GBC demonstrates how sustainability in construction is about more than balancing books on your carbon footprint. It’s about not destroying ecosystems, depleting the world’s finite resources or harming peoples and exploiting communities.
Proper consideration and analysis of sustainability pitfalls are needed to understand both where eco-friendly practices can be incorporated into the structure itself and where they can come in terms of material procurement.
Sustainability in construction means sustainability in all facets of the industry, at every point across the supply chain.
The Secret Ingredient to Successful Sustainability in Construction: Honesty
Honesty is the best policy when it comes to sustainability.
There is a temptation to present results as being more sustainable than they are. This might be to improve on reputation, impress stakeholders, or appease regulators. You may work with contractors that claim to be sustainable without actually checking they have the proper accreditations, training or competency.
But the problem here is that mitigation of actual sustainable results — sweeping problems under the rug — makes them more difficult to confront and address in the future. Sustainability in construction is no easy task. Progression should be considered a success; failure to hit all your goals should not be considered a defeat.
Open and honest practice — owning your practices and recognising your room for improvement — is the way to ensure all your unsustainable activities are eventually addressed and resolved.
Your progress towards sustainability in construction can be shared through assessment methods like BREEAM, which standardise and score construction projects and building lifecycle performances based on objective sustainability criteria. Such certification ensures total transparency within sustainable construction, which both rewards progress and clarifies room for improvement.
Global Sustainability in Construction is About Leading by Example
As more and more construction businesses push for sustainability, a trickle becomes a waterfall.
The interconnected age we live in facilitates movement on a global scale. As global demand for sustainable resources increases, a shift occurs to meet that demand. Just as increasing demands for electric cars means fewer petrol or diesel vehicles on the road, so too does the demand for sustainable resources means the availability of unsustainable materials diminishes as suppliers pivot with the changing times.
In countries where sustainability is not part of the political agenda, and where regulation and legislation may be weaker or less robustly enforced, toxic waste dumping and environmental destruction may occur to enhance profitability and economic growth. Our responsibility should be to understand our supply chains and only work with suppliers who meet high environmental and social standards. By making sustainable production the most in-demand opportunity, we make it the only one that makes any sense.
What Sustainable Construction Means for the Industry (And Your Construction Business)
If we continue on our current path, the outlook for the climate is bleak. With the production of building materials, including steel and concrete, being energy intensive, they make a significant contribution to climate change.
A report published by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) highlights how the global demand for construction materials could skyrocket from its current levels of around 90 gigatons per year to 167 by the middle of the century.
The resulting impacts on the environment are massive including, huge increases in air and water pollution, staggering consumption of energy, monumental reductions in finite resources and catastrophic destruction of ecosystems.
But these predictions are all based on a world full of unsustainable and ecologically-damaging resource gathering. The world could be a very different place if we follow the core tenets of sustainability in construction and strive to minimise our environmental impact of resource acquisition and project development.
And so sustainability in construction means a future, not just for the planet, but the industry.
Sustainable Practices Mean Compliant Practices
The governments of the world are taking action, clamping down on unsustainable practices and enforcing laws to keep climate destruction down. The UK is poised to become a world leader in sustainability, and with that comes ever-increasing regulations that must be followed.
If nothing else, a step towards sustainability in construction is a step towards ongoing activity. Those that cannot and will not work in sustainable ways face a clock that is slowly ticking towards their very own destruction. Working with sustainably accredited contractors can help avoid this happening to you.
Sustainability in construction, at its most basic form, could mean compliance or bust.
Drop by the CHAS blog now and then to get more insights and tips on making your construction and business practices more sustainable. You can also join CHAS as a client to get FREE access to our database of contractors that have demonstrated environmental compliance through assessment schemes like PAS91 and the Common Assessment Standard.
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