Summary
¦ The “carbon score” of building products is increasingly important.
¦ A carbon budget is likely to form part of the costings process in future.
¦ Buyers are demanding carbon-efficient materials and supply chains.
¦ The UK-GBC says the timber sector should address the carbon life cycle issue.
The interpretation of “responsible sourcing” is widening, moving far beyond supply chain certification. In July, UN Environment Program Finance Initiative officials met global investors and NGOs in London to begin calculating ‘natural capital’ values for various resources. Long term, such calculations could influence the supply of timber, but in the shorter term, which aspects of responsible sourcing will drive competitive advantage for the timber sector?
Procurement standards for the London 2012 Olympics were set deliberately high, including equality and educational dimensions, to provide a replicable model for sustainable construction.
LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) expects suppliers to “have an understanding” of issues ranging from social and ethical impacts, such as diversity and inclusion, to the impact of products and their movement on local air quality. Resource and energy efficiency and energy optimisation are key, and suppliers must “demonstrate how the embodied impact of products and services have been minimised”. LOCOG’s Guidelines on Carbon Emissions of Products help suppliers to present their data.
Sustainability programme
Marks & Spencer, a leading player in business sustainability, similarly created a Sustainable Construction Manual in 2007 when launching its Plan A sustainability programme. Aiming to be the most sustainable major retailer by 2015, M&S updated the manual earlier this year focusing on eight topics. These include carbon, water, waste, materials, and biodiversity. Buildings will have a Plan A Passport to monitor progress, and Plan A requirements and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are being built into construction contract documents.
“Under Plan A, we will have carbon managers on our major construction projects by the close of 2010,” said Munish Datta, Plan A and sustainable construction programme manager. “The carbon manager’s position is similar to quantity surveyors or architects. Their responsibilities include establishing a baseline carbon score for the project, encompassing both embodied and operational carbon; creating a carbon reduction strategy that may influence material selection, design format, concept and construction practice; and recommending reduction methods to the project team.
“Progress will be measured as tonnes of CO2 saved as a result of implementing the carbon reduction strategy. Carbon reduction should be a collective effort.”
Carbon reduction
Michael Ankers, chief executive of the Construction Products Association, acknowledges the significance of carbon reduction in winning future business: “It’s likely there will be two future ‘currencies’ for costing buildings – a fiscal budget and a carbon budget – which will flex to produce optimum outcomes for the specifier,” he said. “It would behove supplying companies, whatever their size, to begin understanding the carbon impacts of their products’ manufacture and distribution.
“Buyers of construction products will become increasingly demanding of carbon-efficient materials and supply chains. To compete effectively, timber suppliers will need to understand not only how their product performs physically but also its carbon balance. Carbon reduction is a wide agenda but astute companies will recognise the business opportunities and will prepare accordingly.
“As buildings become more energy efficient, so focus turns towards the elements that make up the building. Greater attention is now being paid to embodied carbon in products such as timber. The whole life cycle of a building product needs to be demonstrable, not just the carbon involved in its primary manufacture and supply chain. Replacement often generates as much carbon as the initial supply,” said Mr Ankers.
Life cycle carbon
Anna Surgenor, senior technical officer of the UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC), agrees that the timber sector should rapidly address life cycle carbon. “Standardising carbon measurement throughout the life cycle of a timber product would be a significant step forward in the complex subject area of embodied carbon of construction materials,” she said. “Environmental Product Declarations and guidance on undertaking life cycle modelling emerging from the CEN TC350 standards programme will help present environmental impact information to customers in a transparent, consistent and comparable manner.”
Encouraging participation in defining measurement parameters, she added: “In response to the success of timber certification schemes, and for their own social responsibility objectives, the wider construction products sector has developed and introduced its own initiatives for responsible sourcing, guided by framework standards such as BS 8902 and BES 6001.
“With the burgeoning number of options for demonstrating responsible production, and the accelerated interest in issues such as embodied carbon, businesses need clarity and consistency when making decisions.”
