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These are the carbon emissions that contractors usually have responsibility for
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Why measure construction carbons?
The construction industry, like any other industry, needs to play its part in minimising the UK’s CO2 emissions and contribute towards carbon reduction targets.
Working in construction for a number of years we are very conscious of paying lip service – saying that we were being green and aware of ecolgical issues – but really construction had not had the opportunity to engage with the carbon debate. The design and consulting side do but rarely the construction side. It’s time for the construction industry to wake up – there are millions of projects taking place in the UK every year. Half of them are not managed or controlled.
Where should companies start?
Although construction companies can assist designers and clients to minimise design and operational CO2 emissions, they should directly contribute in minimising their own construction process CO2 as part of their custainability and corporate social responsibility strategies.
By establishing a 'minimising carbon' strategy, contracting teams can address a number of sustainability responsibilities:
- Economic – carbon emissions should be seen as an indicator of “waste” – fuel costs can be reduced through re-engineering, through procurement, logistics and of course through energy management.
- Social – procuring and employing locally ensures local sustainable business and communities as well as reducing construction miles and construction related CO2.
- Environmental – Reduction of carbon emissions improves quality of life for us and future generations.
Organisations need to manage the carbon emissions caused by their activities in the office and on projects. This includes journeys made by admin, management, operatives, deliveries, waste, and visitors and utilities consumption.We can now show that the greatest contributor to construction emissions is not utilities on site, as once thought, but transportation of materials and people. On some projects this accounts for as much as 70% of the carbon footprint.
How can Construct CO2 help?
To manage you need to be able to measure and understand. Construct CO2 is a web-based tool providing a simple, practical and systematic approach to measuring organisational and project carbon emissions. This enables companies and project teams to re-engineer their business, design, procurement, logistics and construction processes to minimise their carbon footprint.When construction companies use the tool, they can talk to a client about it and it [the awareness] opens a lot of doors.
Why did you develop ConstructCO2?
ConstructCO2was developed following requests from a public sector client for a tool that would enable them and their supply chain to be proactive in their approach to reducing their carbon footprint. We allowed them to:
- measure and benchmark construction carbon footprint
- map the supply chain to demonstrate a commitment to localism and reduction of construction carbon miles footprint
- understand their footprint to enable improvement and reduction of additional costs
Which projects and clients use ConstructCO2?
ConstructCO2, is currently used on over 100 UK construction projects across all sectors, from a value of £50K to £25m+, for public and private clients.
Not only does this demonstrate the flexibility of ConstructCO2 but it also shows that CO2 can effectively and easily be monitored on all projects, regardless of how large or small.
Projects across the globe are starting to use the tool. We have recently signed collaboration agreements with organisations in the USA, Hong Kong & China for implementation that would enable the NFB and UK members to benchmark and share best practice internationally.
Monitoring CO2 is sometimes just a tick box exercise, is ConstructCO2 any different?
All our customers are construction organisations,using ConstructCO2 to measure, map, understand and improve their carbon emissions by reducing their delivery costs and meeting their carbon footprint targets.
ConstructCO2has also been nominated for the Building Magazine Awards 2012 by its users.
It supports a number of key environmental and sustainable construction schemes such as:
- ISO 14001 - Carbon emissions that arise at project level through travel of management, operatives, materials and waste, along with the fuel used on site for plant and power are often the number one CO2 environmental impact
- Considerate Constructors Scheme Registered Site Checklist includes measuring the project carbon footprint as an issue for assessment.
- CSH, BREEAM and LEED require construction site impacts like CO2 to be assessed - and increasingly to be addressed.
- Strategy for Sustainable Construction calls for a 15% reduction in carbon emissions.
Right now, ConstructCO2 shows a Performance Indicator of 96kg CO2 for every £1000 construction value across the industry. As we gain more data, we will be able to distinguish more between different sectors and different contract procurement routes.
Sustainability management is changing fast, where do you see construction carbon management going in the next 5 years?
We envisage carbon management to be a fundamental driver in improving the future construction industry. A focus on carbon reduction will both enable and force the industry to revisit and address:
- procurement strategies
- localism – direct employment, supply chain and responsible material sourcing
- waste and construction inefficiencies
- approach to integrated logistics management
- energy management
Commitment from organisations to use ConstructCO2 must be made by the managing director or a board member to ensure full project buy in.
Verification and validation of data entered is carried out primarily through users’ own ISO9001 and ISO14001 management systems and audits. In addition,our parent company IBE Partnership undertakes unannounced audits of project CO2 management on behalf of clients on a number of projects providing confidence that input /output data and targets are robust.
If you are interested in this topic then why not join in the carbon reduction, CSR, and sustainability discussions on twitter by following @ConstructCO2 and @gb_news
This article originally appeared in the March 2012 issue of Greenbuild magazine. For a free subscription click here .
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