Sustainability

Ben Griffiths is operations director at Rye Group A recent report from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee found that the construction, excavation and demolition industries are responsible for 62 per cent of the UK’s waste. This may be a shocking figure, but not surprising given that construction underpins…

Lee Jones is head of manufacturing solutions at NBS and acting head of sustainability at Byggfakta Group With COP27 taking place later on 6 November, the construction industry is gearing up for the latest advice on climate change. For construction, an industry responsible for nearly 40 per cent of all…

Richard Robinson is chief executive of Atkins UK & Europe and deputy co-chair of the Construction Leadership Council In June, advisory body the Climate Change Committee (CCC) published its monitoring framework, a means by which it can measure the UK’s progress towards reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Closely aligned with…

Simon Richards is the sustainability director at Sir Robert McAlpine As the most recent host of the Climate Change Conference, it seems fair to assume that the UK was set to enjoy a high profile at the next meeting of the event (6-18 November), better known as COP27. Expectations are…

The cost of steel rose so steeply this year that even some of the biggest project managers in the country were beginning to feel the heat. Prices, which had been largely stable at around £350 per tonne, were suddenly hitting levels of between £500 and £700, and even more. The…

By Tony Selwyn, head of environmental planning at Plowman Craven Whilst enjoying an ice cream on a recent holiday, I couldn’t help but notice the idling engine of the ice cream van nearby. Not great in terms of either noise or air pollution, but essential for a large majority of…

Paul Reeve is director of CSR at engineering services body ECA We are all too aware of the energy price shock. But sometimes forgotten in the current crisis is the contribution low carbon technologies make to lowering energy bills. Business investment in such technologies can significantly reduce lighting, heating and…

Phillipa Grant is a partner and global director of sustainability at AESG Following a compromised outcome in Glasgow last year, with 200 countries agreeing climate action must accelerate to keep the Paris commitment goals alive, the political, economic and environmental turmoil of 2022 threatens the international cooperation and focus needed…

Paul Astle is Building Structures Sustainability Lead at Ramboll As an industry, we don’t know how exactly much concrete we use. While the Materials Product Association (MPA) estimates that 37.5 million cubic metres of concrete are used each year across the UK, the reality is that we don’t have a detailed…

Peter Sayce is chief product officer at Bramble Energy Is the wider construction industry overlooking the potential of hydrogen to reduce the sector's contribution to climate change? Hydrogen technology offers high efficiency and versatility, as well as longer range and usage for equipment – key benefits for construction. And, unlike…