‘How to Nail Sustainable Construction’ co-hosted by The Future Economy Network and Bevan Brittan LLP.
On Thursday 7th Feb 2019, The Future Economy Network hosted an event entitled ‘How to Nail Sustainable Construction’. The afternoon event took place at subscribers, Bevan Brittan’s city centre offices in Bristol and attracted a varied audience comprising sustainability and construction professionals.
Director of The Future Economy Network, Katherine Piper opened the event, highlighting the benefits of subscribing to the Network, sharing exciting news about The Future Economy Group’s move to their new sustainability hub, advising of their upcoming Festival of Sustainable Business and introducing new members of the team, Richard Murphy (Director of Recruitment) and Phoebe Bruford (Events and Subscriptions Officer).
This was followed by welcoming Sophia Cox of UK Green Building Council. Sophia spoke about how we are now living in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Connected and Ambiguous) World and how currently many businesses are not responding well to this. She summarised the findings from the recent IPCC report which looked at scenarios for a 1.5, 2 and 3C warming world as well as drawing attention to issues around air pollution. Sophia relayed information from the UK Green Building Council’s State of Sustainability Report with particular reference to embodied carbon, the performance gap and construction waste. She went on to highlight some of the innovations within the construction industry referencing offsite construction techniques, designing for deconstruction, materials passports, bee bricks and the work of Network subscribers, Collecteco.
We then welcomed award-winning engineering consultancy and Network subscribers, Hoare Lea. Principal Sustainability Consultant, Richard Harper spoke about the need for the construction industry to do things differently given urban population growth which will increase the demand for construction materials. He advised that 59% of waste in the UK comes from the construction industry with 6 million tonnes being sent to landfill. Richard went on to explain the difference between the linear, recycling and circular economy and gave some product examples that are well suited to the circular economy.
Network subscribers, The Green Register were then invited to speak. Dan Weisselberg spoke about how it is not only the construction of the buildings that is a problem, but also how these buildings are then used. He stressed that 80% of the building stock by 2025 is already in existence, with a lot of them not meeting good enough standards. Given this, there is a need to address retrofitting within the sustainable construction industry.
The event ended with some lively networking over drinks and snacks. We would like to offer sincere thanks to all of our speakers and to Network subscribers, Bevan Brittan for co-hosting the event. Also, a huge thank you to all attendees – we hope you found it an interesting event and came away with some useful insights/collaborations. If you could please complete the feedback form you will receive, it would be very much appreciated.
The Future Economy Network look forward to seeing you at another event soon!