Britain's humble construction site cabins are set for a makeover as part of an ambitious plan to cut the carbon footprint of sites by 15 per cent within the next two years. Developed by the Strategic Forum for Construction in partnership with the Carbon Trust — and involving many leading names in the UK construction industry — the plan outlines a package of measures designed to cut the industry’s carbon emissions in England by some 750,000 tonnes a year, saving firms £180m a year in energy costs.
Temporary cabins are identified as one of the top sources of carbon emissions and wasted energy on construction sites: they are often poorly insulated and lack the controls for heating, lighting and electricity use that are increasingly found in permanent buildings. Cabins also represent one of the biggest opportunities for contractors to cut their costs as well as their carbon emissions, says the Carbon Trust.
The new plan estimates that £45m and 200,000 tonnes of CO2 could be saved each year by using modern 'green' site offices that can cut carbon emissions and energy use by 50 per cent, or by retrofitting existing cabins to be more energy efficient. Over their lifetime, it is estimated that energy efficient cabins alone could reduce emissions by five million tonnes, the equivalent of taking 1.5 million cars off the road for a year.
“This project has seen collaboration on an unprecedented level within the industry to address the issue of carbon emissions from construction sites," said Paul Toyne, Chairman of the Carbon Subgroup of the Strategic Forum for Construction. "The work we have done to date has set out the scale of the task and the actions that need to be taken. The challenge for us now is to deliver it. While many individual companies are already taking significant steps to reduce their own emissions, this plan provides the blueprint for a pan-industry approach which will enable rapid progress on reducing energy consumption while maintaining business performance.”
Putting an end to wasted heat
And David Vincent, Director of Projects at the Carbon Trust, added: “It has been an enlightening process to identify the biggest opportunities for construction firms to cut their carbon emissions along with their fuel and energy costs. As much as 25 per cent of the carbon reduction target can be achieved, and tens of millions of pounds saved, by putting an end to the wasted heat and lighting from thousands of site offices across the country.
“We look forward to working with the Strategic Forum for Construction and industry leaders to implement this plan over the next two years.”
In their action plan, the Strategic Forum for Construction and the Carbon Trust also set out several additional actions the construction industry needs to take in order to achieve its 15 per cent reduction target with two years. These include: more fuel efficient driving for freight, waste transport and business travel, and using more fuel efficient fleet vehicles (predicted saving of £90m and 270,000 tonnes of CO2 per year); using construction plant efficiently by educating site staff on the fuel efficient use of equipment, collecting and analysing energy data from on site equipment, and enabling all mobile plant to turn off automatically when not being used (predicted saving of £19m and 84,000 tonnes of CO2 per year); connecting construction sites to the national grid earlier to minimise the use of diesel powered generators (predicted saving of £7m and 45,000 tonnes of CO2 per year); and improving energy efficiency in corporate offices (predicted saving of £4m and 28,000 tonnes of CO2 per year).
