Sustainable Construction

What is sustainable construction?

This is defined as using the design and construction of new buildings to reduce resource use, particularly those leading to carbon emissions, and to reduce environmental impact. In addition, new buildings should be adapted to the impacts of climate change.

Why should businesses adopt sustainable construction principles in their development projects?

• It is not just individuals and government that need to reduce carbon emissions and improve the environment. Businesses have an important role to play and it is at a time when they are creating new buildings that they are best placed to make a “step-change” in reducing their environmental impact.

• Businesses today are increasingly mindful of the need to be able to demonstrate Corporate Social Responsibility. With the growing public awareness of environmental issues, the enduring benefit of a sustainable building will continue to make a contribution to this topic over successive years.

• The very public face of a business that a building will present can have a considerable influence on the perception of the occupier to the public and its customers

• Adapting to climate change, for instance recognising that stormier conditions are likely to lead to higher incidence of flooding events, can help to improve a business’s resilience.

• On the bottom line, many elements of sustainable construction will lead to reduced long term running costs. Even if the initial investment has to be slightly higher, the “whole life costs” could well result in considerable financial benefit to the business.

The brewers, Adnams of Southwold, are a clear example of a business which has used a new sustainable building to achieve a number of objectives listed above. They have recently developed a new warehouse at Reydon. This has strong environmental credentials. It makes use of very high levels of insulation and renewable energy to reduce running costs. At the same time, the presence of a very visible innovative and sustainable building, together with the wider publicity associated with its construction, has reinforced the perception of the company and its core values. Read more about the environmental credenti

What are the key things that a business can do when constructing a new building to reduce its environmental impact and its carbon emissions?

It is likely that a business contemplating a construction project will be using a series of specialists to assist them, architects, planners, builders, heating engineers etc. and these should have their own access to the information needed to tackle environmental concerns. However, the business will need to have a broad outline of the possibilities open to it to start on the discussions with their advisors. The areas listed below highlight the principal areas that they may wish to consider, but it is not anticipated that every project will be able to deal with all of these issues.

• Location and Siting

• Energy Efficiency

• Efficient Energy Sources

• Water Use

• Construction Waste

• Waste Recycling

• Use of Sustainable and Recycled Materials

• Environmental Protection and Enhancement

• Adaptation to Climate Change

To find out more about these areas visit Principal areas to consider in sustainable construction.

Sustainable Construction Standards

BREEAM (the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method is the commonly accepted approach to determining the overall environmental impact of a building. To really make a difference, it is hoped that buildings would achieve their “Very Good” or “Excellent” status. For further details on BREEAM visit the Building Research Establishment (BRE).

BRE also produce a free monthly e-newsletter which you can sign up to which covers BRE events, training courses, publications and news in the built environment sector.

Sources of Further Information

There is a limited amount of information on this subject available locally. Further information will be added to this site as it becomes available. However there are a number of useful sources that are available elsewhere in the country or on a national basis.

• A comprehensive set of advice has been prepared by Durham County Council and the One North East Development Agency. While some is specific to that region , much is of relevant more generally.

• Woking Borough Council has also produced some useful guidance on Building a Sustainable Community

• Green Roof Toolkit from the Environment Agency

Case Studies

Adnams - Find out about the environmental credentials of Adnams new distribution centre.

School Buildings - Whilst school buildings are not the same as commercial buildings, they do have many of the characteristics of dealing with large spaces at a non-residential level. Suffolk County Council has been including many sustainable features in their recent school buildings and the Beaumont School at Hadleigh is profiled Beaumont Hadleigh School.