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An unusual alliance between government and industry has led to the creation of a Strategy for Sustainable Construction in England and Wales that outlines voluntary commitments on the part of companies and government departments.
The proposed strategy would effectively require building firms to agree to meet new targets on health and safety, sustainable product use and staff training while the government, for its part, would introduce sustainability principles into its procurement contracts.
The draft document, which is out for consultation until the end of November, has been drawn up after 18 months of talks between officials and the industry in an effort to make ‘a step change in the sustainability of the construction industry’.
Ministers say they are keen to ‘create long term certainty’ in a market where the public sector accounts for about 40 per cent of spending, so that British companies can lead the way on sustainability. They also want the strategy to inform government housing policy, which envisages building three million new homes by 2020 to higher environmental standards than exist at present.
Among targets set out in the strategy are:
all new homes to be zero carbon by 2016, with building regulations ‘locking in’ improvements before then
only timber from verifiable sustainable sources to be used on government construction projects from 1 April 2009
a 10 per cent reduction in the incidence rate of fatal and major injuries from 2000 levels by 2010, and a 20 per cent cut in cases of work-related ill-health by the same date.
The draft also envisages construction companies drawing up voluntary agreements with clients to reduce the carbon footprint and daily water consumption of new construction projects, reduce on-site waste, use sustainable materials and train workers in construction skills.
Mike Davies, chairman of the Strategic Forum for Construction, an industry body that has been involved in drawing up the strategy, said it set out a mixture of ‘some quick wins and some where longer term measures need to be in place’.
The construction industry is worth £100billion ($200bn) a year, accounts for eight per cent of the UK’s gross domestic product, and employs more than two million people. Buildings are responsible for almost half of the country’s carbon emissions, half of water consumption, about one third of landfill waste and 13 per cent of all raw materials used in the economy.
The strategy will go some way to answer critics of the government, who say it should be doing much more to encourage responsible corporate behaviour through its procurement. Prime minister Gordon Brown was recently urged by Oxfam and the Ethical Trading Initiative to create a more ‘enabling environment for ethical trade’ in public procurement (EP9, issue 4, p4).
The proposed strategy would effectively require building firms to agree to meet new targets on health and safety, sustainable product use and staff training while the government, for its part, would introduce sustainability principles into its procurement contracts.
The draft document, which is out for consultation until the end of November, has been drawn up after 18 months of talks between officials and the industry in an effort to make ‘a step change in the sustainability of the construction industry’.
Ministers say they are keen to ‘create long term certainty’ in a market where the public sector accounts for about 40 per cent of spending, so that British companies can lead the way on sustainability. They also want the strategy to inform government housing policy, which envisages building three million new homes by 2020 to higher environmental standards than exist at present.
Among targets set out in the strategy are:
all new homes to be zero carbon by 2016, with building regulations ‘locking in’ improvements before thenonly timber from verifiable sustainable sources to be used on government construction projects from 1 April 2009 a 10 per cent reduction in the incidence rate of fatal and major injuries from 2000 levels by 2010, and a 20 per cent cut in cases of work-related ill-health by the same date.The draft also envisages construction companies drawing up voluntary agreements with clients to reduce the carbon footprint and daily water consumption of new construction projects, reduce on-site waste, use sustainable materials and train workers in construction skills.
Mike Davies, chairman of the Strategic Forum for Construction, an industry body that has been involved in drawing up the strategy, said it set out a mixture of ‘some quick wins and some where longer term measures need to be in place’.
The construction industry is worth £100billion ($200bn) a year, accounts for eight per cent of the UK’s gross domestic product, and employs more than two million people. Buildings are responsible for almost half of the country’s carbon emissions, half of water consumption, about one third of landfill waste and 13 per cent of all raw materials used in the economy.
The strategy will go some way to answer critics of the government, who say it should be doing much more to encourage responsible corporate behaviour through its procurement. Prime minister Gordon Brown was recently urged by Oxfam and the Ethical Trading Initiative to create a more ‘enabling environment for ethical trade’ in public procurement (EP9, issue 4, p4).
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