Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to total up the environmental impact of a product’s supply chain. Providing sufficient data is available on the product’s composition and supply chain, LCA can be used to work out the environmental impact of almost anything from a can of baked beans to a car. The results of the … Continue reading “BREEAM – Why whole building life cycle assesssment (LCA)?”
Asset Management and Performance Where does measurement of asset performance sit within the wider context of environmental, social and corporate governance through striving for long-term value? One of the last political actions of our former Prime Minister, Theresa May, was to sanction a legally binding net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target of 2050 for the UK (previously … Continue reading “Asset Management and Performance”
Getting results with building LCA As described in the earlier article Why building LCA?, BREEAM New Construction 2018 requires building LCA to be carried out for the new Mat 01 issue. The requirements in Mat 01 focus on rewarding good quality building LCA through comparison with a benchmark and options appraisal. Starting with the project … Continue reading “Getting results with building LCA”
Building LCA benchmarks – BREEAM UK New Construction 2018 As explained in the article Why building LCA?, The Green Guide to Specification is being replaced by building LCA as the primary way environmental impacts from construction products are assessed in BREEAM. Building LCA in BREEAM UK New Construction 2018 involves two different but complimentary approaches: … Continue reading “Building LCA benchmarks – BREEAM UK New Construction 2018”
September saw the Global Climate Strike sweeping the world, an agenda unprecedently and almost single-handedly sparked by the courageous, young campaigner, Greta Thunberg. With a worldwide army, the Global Climate Strike is delivering powerful messages to leaders across the globe that much greater and immediate action against climate change is necessary, so not to inflict irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies.
Health, Wellbeing and Active Design The condition of the built environment can have a huge impact on society and public services; BRE’s research on the cost of poor-quality homes indicating a staggering £1.4bn per year to the NHS and £18.6 billion to wider society, so anything we can do to improve health and wellbeing is … Continue reading “Delivering health & wellbeing benefits with Active Design”
This is what happens on the internet every 60 seconds, and it is but a tiny snapshot of everything that happens.
Our digital lives are becoming increasingly dependent on this network, but this is having an increasing physical impact too. Alongside the visible infrastructure that crisscross the surface of our planet, an invisible digital infrastructure is growing in parallel, through the air, under the oceans and beneath our feet.
In this article we will explore some of the increasing impacts of our digital lives, the future challenges they pose, and the solutions that might address them.
The end of Digital Construction Week (UK) provides a great opportunity to reflect on how the industry is utilising new technologies to drive forward efficiencies and value. This year many of the speakers were keen to focus the listeners minds on the challenges facing the industry, often referring to the Construction 2025 targets and the need to deliver our projects cheaper, faster and more sustainably, without sacrificing on quality.
What is Innovation? Well, for this article I will use a standard definition and say that it refers to incremental and emergent, or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organisations. The goal of innovation is positive change, to make something better, but striving for that goal also brings with it a level … Continue reading “Managing risk & driving innovation with BREEAM”
Redefining Value- How ESG is changing the definition of value in real estate Last month I was invited to the UC Davis Energy Affiliates Forum to sit on a panel discussing the trends and outlook for sustainability and energy resources. Amongst many topics the panel discussed, I was particularly interested in how Environmental Social Governance … Continue reading “Redefining Value”
