The Green Construction Board launched their ‘Three Years On’ report yesterday at Ecobuild outlining the progress of the construction industry towards the green construction targets. For those of you that have not come across the Green Construction Board, it is the forum set up in 2011 by government and the UK design, construction, property and infrastructure industry to:
- Provide leadership on implementing green construction initiatives
- Monitor progress towards the carbon reduction commitments set out in ‘Construction 2025’
- Advise government to help set policy
- Promote the key message that ‘reducing carbon reduces costs’
The Green Construction Board has provided a Road Map to the introduction of legislation and interim targets, together with helpful guidance and case studies that can be found at http://www.greenconstructionboard.org/
Three years on, the Green Construction Board has helped many companies realise tangible benefits from the application of sustainability initiatives – but the Green Construction Board recognises that more needs to be done to roll the initiatives out across different sectors and to support SMEs. In particular the Green Construction Board highlighted that a cultural shift is needed in order for the wider public to perceive being wasteful of energy and resources as socially unacceptable as drink driving or smoking in public places, and will work with government and industry to develop a cultural agenda.
In the closing address, Peter Hanford (Government Chief Construction Advisor) noted that GBC is focused on:
- People and image – engaging young people in particular to inspire the next generation to come into construction
- Smart and innovation – seeing the challenges as business opportunities and technology like BIM as enablers for new ideas
- Sustainable – monitoring progress against the Road Map
- Growth – recognising that this is part driven by regulation but mainly by consumer choice
- Leadership – sustained effort is needed to roll the initiatives out across all levels of the construction industry
An oft repeated phrase during the event was ‘reducing carbon reduces cost, so why wouldn’t you (or your business) do it?’
Guest blog by Lorna Stork of Knauf and Peter Mouncey of FaulknerBrowns Architects on behalf of the Constructing Excellence Sustainability Theme Group
