Sustainability

The construction sector has a plastic problem.

More than 300m tonnes of plastic waste now litter the world’s oceans, risking the disruption and decline of the delicate ecosystem that supports so much life across the globe. But what does plastic in the ocean have to do with UK construction sites? Turns out the…

Sustainable refurbs are the hospitality sector’s big trend and offer huge potential for contractors. Lucy Alderson looks at the £50m green revamp of Park Lane’s Grosvenor House to find out more.

In 1927, a scandal broke out over one of London’s most iconic construction projects. Contractors were busy demolishing the once privately owned mansion, Grosvenor House, to make…

In spring next year, Leeds’ new district heating network is expected to come online.

When finished, the scheme heat and hot water produced in a new recycling and energy recovery facility will be delivered to nearly 2,000 homes – making it one of the largest systems in the UK. The development promises…

Those pesky environmentalists are at it again.

Not content with endlessly quipping ‘I told you so’ during the recent heatwave, they’ve now thrown a spanner in the works of Theresa May’s housing masterplan: the National Planning Policy Framework. The NPPF reforms were introduced in July this year and are intended to simplify…

For the first time since the Victorian era, at times the UK’s electricity system is running without the use of any coal – sometimes for days.

Power sector emissions have plummeted and renewable generation makes up nearly 30 per cent of the total. The government’s tactics to spur on clean energy…

There are times when nature appears to stand in the way of much-needed housing and infrastructure development.

But is this always the case and are opportunities being missed? All development works require good planning, and considering ecological issues at the earliest opportunity is always recommended. Many ecological constraints can be avoided by altering a…

It’s certainly been a while since a prime minister made a speech about energy use in buildings.

But last week Theresa May stood up at Jodrell Bank and, in a flash of this government’s new-found green ambition, announced a mission to “at least halve the energy usage of new buildings by…

The most widely used man-made material on Earth is undergoing a renaissance in the understanding of its whole-life carbon benefits.

For decades aesthetes have contemplated its merits, with landmark buildings increasingly subject to preservation orders rather than demolition. Now the most widely used man-made material on Earth is undergoing a renaissance…

Can recycling in construction be taken so far that materials are endlessly reused in a circular economy? The co-founders of a new start-up think so – and the government agrees with them.

On paper, there is nothing wrong with the concept of a circular economy. It offers an alternative to the…

This year marked 10 years since the launch of the UK Green Building Council, a milestone in the development of sustainable practice in UK construction. So how well is the industry performing on sustainability, what does it do well and – most importantly – what is still left to do?

Sustainability increasingly…