On Tuesday I visited the Hargould Eco Showcase at Old Trafford Stadium to view a series of seminars about environment and sustainability in construction. It was a great opportunity to get an overview of the construction industry and try to gage the environmental feelings within the sector.

Arriving slightly late, after my sat-nav decided to stop giving me directions as soon as the stadium came into sight forcing me to spend the next twenty minutes negotiating myself down a series of side streets around the stadium. Finally I managed to locate where I was supposed to go, park up, register, collect my free cup of tea, say a quick hello to Eddie on the BuilderScrap stand and sit down in time for the first of the three seminars (resource efficiency in construction).

All three seminars followed a similar structure looking firstly at the issue, then the solution and finally the best practice. I was delighted that within the first seminar tackling resource consumption, BuilderScrap got a mention when discussing the practice of re-use and its growing importance to the industry, particularly pleasing with Eddie conveniently poised around the corner waiting for the seminar audience to filter past him ready to explain more about BuilderScrap.

Without going into too much detail about each seminar, the key points of the first seminar were to outline just how much perfectly good materials are being sent to landfill under the false pretence of being waste. Stats were provided demonstrating for example that 13 million tonnes of raw materials go to landfill which have never been used. It went on to explain how much money could potentially be saved each year with improved site management and planning to reduce and reuse as much as possible.

The second seminar discussed carbon management in construction, outlining the need to make carbon reductions in the industry through the use of good design, correct materials, best practice construction and also considering the long term operation of the building, will it be a big emitter of greenhouse gases (the period between construction and demolition). This was discussed with particular reference to BREEAM quality projects.

The final seminar looked into sustainable procurement in construction, this being the information about the products themselves. Where they are from? What they are made of? How have they been transported? And how they will be disposed of? It seems crazy to think that raw materials could be mined/farmed in one country, transported to be manufactured in the next, transported again to another country to be sold, and then end up never being used and ending on a landfill site after all that energy has been expended.

My main thoughts from the seminars were that whilst government in the UK is launching so many initiatives such as act on CO2 and halving waste to landfill, there needs to be more explanation why? It is not right to leave the construction sector feeling as if it is been persecuted by a series of laws without explanation,  why shouldn’t they carry on the way they have been, after all, many companies/individuals will have operated the same way for decades. If the time was taken to issue the relevant information in the industry it could show that sustainability is not that hard to build in to existing policy and with companies like BuilderScrap providing a platform to make it even easier to implement best practice then it can surprise how easy and cost effective a change in attitude can prove.

There is a need for constant reminders from the top down; you are not always going to get through to people first time, the saying is old habits are hard to break and teaching people to act differently can be tough. Having said that I think there is a willingness to change in the construction industry, maybe with les focus on the environment but certainly to save money and also to ensure that they are meeting their client’s expectations, ultimately if the client wants sustainable construction methods, the sector will move to accommodate, those that don’t will be left behind.

Overall I thought the seminars were excellent and would urge anyone within the industry to make an effort to attend in future, the presentations were very easy to follow and appealed to a wide audience. It did not try to be overambitious, there was an appreciation that you are not going to turn the construction industry into a band of eco-warriors overnight, it had a strong emphasis on monetary savings and client expectations, with the environmental message as an underlying theme throughout.