I was suffering eco-overload. The more notes I made at a meeting on the ‘greening’ of UK construction, the less I seemed to understand. The room was awash with environmental consultants and the air thick with acronyms. I just had to hope that a trawl through the internet when I got back to the office would make everything crystal clear. Needless to say it was a relief when the person sitting next to me asked if I had a clue about what had been said. In fact, her precise words were “do you speak green?”.
The trouble is, sustainability now seems to have become a science and, as a result, developed its own language practised by a few people setting the agenda and leaving a lot of us out of the loop. But it’s a topic everyone in business, and the timber sector in particular, has to get a handle on. The government’s new Strategy for Sustainable Construction reinforces that fact.
The document sets out a raft of targets for the building sector and its suppliers and reinforces, as BWF chief executive Richard Lambert said, that while the timber sector has an inherent advantage in the renewability of its material, it can’t expect this to carry the day in an ever ‘greener’ market place. Sustainability now means a lot more; from waste management and product life cycle analysis, to ‘greening’ your information technology.
But the good news is that, while the Strategy document contains a smattering of convoluted eco-speak, and refers to more forums, centres of expertise, toolkits and technology platforms than you can shake a stick at, it does mainly avoid the more obscure eco-references and live up to its aim of “providing greater clarity about government commitments and targets for delivering a sustainable construction industry”.
This is the baton that will be picked up by speakers at TTJ’s Wood Futures conference on the implications for the timber trade of the government’s targets for zero carbon building. It will be an acronym-free zone and no-one should need their copy of the new Plain English Guide to Sustainable Construction.
