About Sustainability in 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, the Energy White Paper and the forthcoming Sustainable Construction Strategy. 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.

In this section

Sustainability Checklist

This Checklist is a tool for the construction industry to assess how companies can improve their sustainability, from the planning and design to the construction process and finished product.
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Key Issues in Sustainable Construction

Constructing Excellence considers there to be 8 key issues to Sustainable Construction. This section lists the issues and summarises what they are, why they're important, what we are doing about them and where to go for more information.
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Demonstrations Programme

Sustainability is a key theme of the Constructing Excellence Demonstrations Programme. This page summarises the Demonstrations Programme and includes links to Sustainability Demonstrations Projects
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Useful Documents

This page summarises useful documents relevant to Sustainable Construction and links either to the source website or to download directly.
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Related information:

Constructing Excellence Commissions

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