How do we assess the environmental impact of construction materials? Some materials may enjoy a reputation as natural and sustainable. Timber, quite literally, grows on trees It is abundant, it captures carbon from the atmosphere, and at the end of its life can decompose naturally, leaving no harmful waste.

But some of the highest value timber comes from ancient forests. Demand for this timber can lead to the destruction of forests that will take generations to regrow… And planting forests to cost-effectively grow construction grade timber may devastate biodiversity.

Plastic has an increasingly malign reputation, and is almost always made from fossil hydrocarbons. There is increasing concern about the spread of microplastics through our environment, and into our bodies.

But how would we have delivered billions of doses of COVID vaccines around the world, and clean syringes to administer them, without plastic? How many millions of people would have lost their lives, or suffered life limiting illness, without it? How much extra land would need to be dedicated to industrial agriculture, if food stuffs could not be transported in shelf life-extending plastic packs?

In this episode, we look at how engineers can consider the life-cycle carbon costs of material choices. We learn how intervention at each stage in a material’s life, from extraction through to a structure’s end-of-use, can boost returns on carbon investments. And we find out how large engineering and construction organisations can work with suppliers, large and small, to improve sustainability across the supply chain.

Guests

Alex Wright is national commercial director at Tarmac. He is responsible for setting commercial strategy. But a key part of that role is identifying how Tarmac can make its offering more sustainable.

Emma Hines is senior construction manager at Tarmac and part of the company’s sustainability team. Her role is to support stakeholders to ensure that they can consider the right solutions to create a sustainable built environment. 

Phil Greenin is a Tarmac frameworks director, responsible for the M25. He works closely with National Highways and other stakeholders to analyse and trial the most sustainable ways of laying and maintaining the UK’s road network.

Jonathan Harry is procurement director for CRH. He works with the supply chain to make CRH a ‘customer of choice’ supporting the development of more sustainable ways of working.

Resources

Tarmac’s Innovation Challenge helps identify sustainable innovations, and promotes their development and commercialisation.

Tarmac recently purchased the first battery electric concrete mixer in the UK. allowing them to move materials from quarry to job site, by rail and road, with no use of fossil fuels.

Panshanger Park is managed by Tarmac and has been used as a quarry. Exhausted quarry areas have been returned to the community as a green space. 

BREEAM standards can be used to validate and certify a sustainable built environment.

BSI and other stakeholders have developed PAS 2080, the world’s first standard for managing infrastructure carbon. It has been pivotal in helping companies to reduce carbon use and costs.

The RIBA Plan of Work organises the process of briefing, designing, constructing and operating building projects into eight stages and explains the stage outcomes, core tasks and information exchanges required at each stage. It can be used with RIBA’s Sustainable Outcomes Guide to provide design principles to achieve a series of measurable sustainable outcomes, and describes approaches that can be used to verify performance