Working Towards A Greener Future

Buildings are so integral to civilisation that some estimates attribute 50-60% of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions to their various uses. As more and more people accept the detrimental effects of man-made climate change, it makes sense that the construction industry adapts its business approach to incorporate a more environmentally conscious stance.

Construction change is driven almost solely by economics (lack of capital investment due to boom and bust for example) and legislation (notably health and safety: 80% fewer fatalities per worker occur compared with 1990). There is no point fighting this fact. Instead, we need to work within these confines if we hope to make change in the construction industry. You’ll notice that this is a theme running through my predictions of the biggest sustainable changes we hope to see in the 2023 UK construction scene.

Ongoing energy is still the largest proportion of a building’s lifetime energy use. A domestic property used to have around 20% of the total lifetime energy embedded within the construction phase, whereas today that embedded energy usage is 40%. As efficiency improves, this is projected to move beyond 50% and therefore a holistic approach to building design becomes more important.