There was standing room only at a recent event at London’s Building Centre. The theme was Material Provenance and the Climate Crisis. On the panel were: Kelly Alvares Doran OOA of MASS Design Group, Richard Boyd MEng CEng MICE of Arup, Cécile Faraud of C40 Cities, Paloma Gormley and Summer Islam of Material Cultures. Between them, they presented on their individual specialisms in relation to; material provenance, embodied carbon and actions which need to be taken by built environment professionals to mitigate against the industry’s woeful sustainability credentials.
Each speaker offered their insight into the complexities and interrelationship between their individual specialist areas. These personal experiences highlighted how interrelated the built environment sector is with each and every Sustainable Development Goal.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) were agreed by world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in 2015. Since then they have formed the foundation for the worlds united quest to achieve a sustainable future. One of the chief challenges overarching all these goals is the need to stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
The built environment impacts all areas of the SDG’s, so for professionals operating in this industry, the task they face to reduce carbon consumption is daunting and critical. The stakes have never been so high. Currently, the sector is responsible for 75% of all Greenhouse gas emissions. The urgency of the crisis could be palpably felt in the packed conference room. To address it, the panel was in agreement that the sector had to gain control over its consumption of materials.
Carbon and the built environment interlinked
Whilst advances in construction technologies, methods and processes are improving exponentially, they are not and can never be the sole answer to the sector's carbon problem. Attention was drawn to new research, which estimates that a demolition project releases 51% of a building’s lifetime quota of carbon emissions in one fell swoop. In light of this new evidence, current buildings should be conserved and retrofitted rather than demolished.
There are many organisations starting to pushing the retrofit agenda, such as RetroFirst being championed by the Architects Journal; whilst agencies such as CDP are actively working with businesses to create clarity. The challenge to all decision makers within the sector is to minimise carbon use. To do this the industry as a whole needs to know the true carbon cost of all aspects of a project. For existing buildings this will require conserving, where possible, embodied carbon in existing buildings and retrofitting/renovating with low carbon materials.
Existing buildings should be conserved where ever practical. All new construction outputs; whether retrofit, renovations or new build should be informed by the true carbon costs of each material. For decades companies have hidden the true carbon footprint of their products by ignoring their supply chain. Analysis shows on average the actual carbon footprint of an individual product is 5.5 times greater than that of the company’s direct emissions. Despite this fact, only a minority of companies have taken steps to address this issue.
Design decisions based on transparent data
Richard Boyd from Arup was clear and stated that we are heading towards a new era where this opacity of information will not be allowed to persist. This silent majority will slowly but surely be named and shamed, and required to evolve into companies with a more circular approach to products.
Material provenance is a vital tool within the environmentalist toolkit. Succeeding in securing a sustainable future for all humanity is a huge, but not surmountable challenge. At the end of a rather sobering evening an audience member asked the panel; “In a nutshell what can we as individual’s do?”, Richard said: “We need to be the best we can possibly be”.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) were agreed by world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in 2015. Since then they have formed the foundation for the worlds united quest to achieve a sustainable future. One of the chief challenges overarching all these goals is the need to stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
The built environment impacts all areas of the SDG’s, so for professionals operating in this industry, the task they face to reduce carbon consumption is daunting and critical. The stakes have never been so high. Currently, the sector is responsible for 75% of all Greenhouse gas emissions. The urgency of the crisis could be palpably felt in the packed conference room. To address it, the panel was in agreement that the sector had to gain control over its consumption of materials.
Carbon and the built environment interlinked
Whilst advances in construction technologies, methods and processes are improving exponentially, they are not and can never be the sole answer to the sector's carbon problem. Attention was drawn to new research, which estimates that a demolition project releases 51% of a building’s lifetime quota of carbon emissions in one fell swoop. In light of this new evidence, current buildings should be conserved and retrofitted rather than demolished.
There are many organisations starting to pushing the retrofit agenda, such as RetroFirst being championed by the Architects Journal; whilst agencies such as CDP are actively working with businesses to create clarity. The challenge to all decision makers within the sector is to minimise carbon use. To do this the industry as a whole needs to know the true carbon cost of all aspects of a project. For existing buildings this will require conserving, where possible, embodied carbon in existing buildings and retrofitting/renovating with low carbon materials.
Existing buildings should be conserved where ever practical. All new construction outputs; whether retrofit, renovations or new build should be informed by the true carbon costs of each material. For decades companies have hidden the true carbon footprint of their products by ignoring their supply chain. Analysis shows on average the actual carbon footprint of an individual product is 5.5 times greater than that of the company’s direct emissions. Despite this fact, only a minority of companies have taken steps to address this issue.
Design decisions based on transparent data
Richard Boyd from Arup was clear and stated that we are heading towards a new era where this opacity of information will not be allowed to persist. This silent majority will slowly but surely be named and shamed, and required to evolve into companies with a more circular approach to products.
Material provenance is a vital tool within the environmentalist toolkit. Succeeding in securing a sustainable future for all humanity is a huge, but not surmountable challenge. At the end of a rather sobering evening an audience member asked the panel; “In a nutshell what can we as individual’s do?”, Richard said: “We need to be the best we can possibly be”.- Date
- Category
- The Built Environment