Introduction
What is sustainable construction?
The Government set out its commitment to sustainable construction in "Building a Better Quality of Life". The document defined sustainable construction by its outcomes. Since then it has consolidated this with changes to the Building Regulations, the Planning White Paper, the Communities Plan and the Energy White Paper. The Sustainable Construction Task Force has presented the business case and Accelerating Change highlighted sustainability as a cross-cutting issue.
Building a better quality of life
The construction industry can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development by:
- being more profitable and competitive;
- delivering buildings and structures that provide greater satisfaction, well-being and value to customers and users;
- respecting and treating its stakeholders more fairly;
- enhancing and better protecting the natural environment;
- minimising its consumption of energy (especially carbon-based energy) and natural resources.
Demonstrations
The demonstrations programme is at the heart of Constructing Excellence. This provides the opportunity for leading edge organisations, from every part of construction, to bring forward exemplars that demonstrate innovation and change, which can be measured, evaluated and shared. These can be site-based or organisational-change projects. There are more than 400 projects in the programme, with a total value of over £7bn. They examples of off-site construction, standardisation, the use of new technology, respect for people activities, partnering and supply chain integration, and other areas of process improvement. The demonstrations have developed a culture of performance measurement as the primary way to verify innovation and improvement.
Constructing Excellence and sustainability
Constructing Excellence has a commitment to sustainability. The Housing Forum formed a Sustainability Working Group in 2000 and produced a report in 2001. The Best Practice Knowledge stream (previously Movement for Innovation (M4I)) also formed a Sustainability Working Group and a spreadsheet tool called the Sustainability Index was created, covering social, economic and environmental factors. However, with the industry grappling with the changes initiated its use was limited. The Sustainability Working Group next published an initial set of benchmarks for environmental performance indicators (EPIs) in 2001 and these have been developed into the Environment Key Performance Indicators which were first published in 2003.
Work for the Local Government Task Force (LGTF) on a Sustainable Construction Action Plan highlighted the many roles and responsibilities local government can utilise to encourage, procure and produce more sustainable construction. More sustainable construction becomes a tangible prospect now that:
- industry has become comfortable with using key performance measures;
- Environment Key Performance Indicators are becoming mainstream, through incorporation in the DTI annual surveys and client specification;
- Respect for People toolkits and Design Quality Indicator (DQI) have been launched
To embed and mainstream sustainability into Constructing Excellence's own demonstrations, a checklist was compiled in late 2002. The checklist is based upon the Sustainable Construction Action Plan and the Sustainability Index, utilising the outputs of all the sustainability working groups, and considering the latest thinking and practice of sustainable construction. This checklist is being made available to all new demonstrations through the National Strategy Panel, to provoke thought and further innovation.
The main focus of this website is buildings, as most of the demonstrations featured are buildings and most of the tools are intended for buildings. However the principles apply to all construction and many of the tools are applicable or easily adapted.
SustainabilityZone
Many of the past and current demonstrations address aspects of sustainability included in the checklist. Constructing Excellence wish to celebrate the innovations, and prove that the checklist provides an achievable framework, that future demonstrations and the whole industry can aspire to.
This website examines each section and criterion of the checklist in the context of a construction project moving from
- planning
- design
- construction process
- finished product
Each stage looks at economic, social and environmental issues and uses past and current demonstrations to show how the criteria can be met. This website does not feature every demonstration that has tackled sustainability, but the full range of such projects can be accessed in the Demonstrations' area of the website. Some of the demonstrations prove many of the checklist criteria, but to enable this report to show the breadth of achievement by the demonstrations, each demonstration is used to highlight only one criterion from the checklist, with a couple of exceptions. This structure helps users find the areas of interest to them, and it must be stressed that all areas are interconnected and impact upon each other.
For example, a client may specify an energy efficient development for environmental reasons, but the solution will probably have lower operating costs and may provide a healthier internal environment for users, thereby increasing satisfaction and productivity. Sustainability is about achieving a balance between economic, social and environmental concerns. The criteria from the checklist are highlighted in the margin throughout the report. The body text explains the importance of the criteria and gives sources of further information. Demonstrations show how the criteria can be achieved, including the benefits of doing so.