Sustainability

Graham Harle is chief executive officer of Gleeds Worldwide With COP26 just around the corner, and following the truly frightening report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sounding a “code red for humanity”, I increasingly find myself talking with colleagues, clients and friends about the climate crisis. Events…

Richard Baldwin is director of development at Derwent London How do we ‘build back better’? Or, in the case of construction, just ‘build better’? This issue has exercised the industry for years, not just since the pandemic. The challenges of ensuring sustainability, flexibility, and futureproofing all come into sharp focus,…

David Cheshire is sustainability director at engineering consultancy Aecom Recent news that the Amazon rainforest now emits more carbon dioxide than it absorbs is the latest worrying sign that we can no longer rely on natural systems to regulate our climate or compensate for our carbon emissions. The onus is…

Sarah Buchanan is innovation manager at Construction Scotland Innovation Centre Over the next 10-15 years, the renovation, maintenance, and improvement (RMI) sector is set to grow significantly as efforts ramp up to achieve the Scottish Government’s goal for net-zero carbon emissions by 2045. There are around 2.5 million homes in…

Andy Mitchell CBE is co-chair of the Construction Leadership Council as well as chief executive officer of Tideway To paraphrase Peter Drucker, we can’t fix what we don’t measure. The climate emergency is by far the most pressing issue that faces our industry. You only have to glance at the…

Stuart Murphy is the founder of tidal power research firm TPGen24 As Construction News reported in March, the Welsh Government has revived its interest in tidal energy solutions. The call for involvement towards establishing a consortium to explore the resource in more depth closed a few weeks ago, and this…

When the pandemic struck, there was a concern that our consideration for the environment would slip back into the shadows. What actually happened was that our reliance on the outdoor spaces we had previously passed by without a thought, be it on our way to the shops or to work,…

“Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” The above gem of distilled suspicion was popularised by Louis Heren, former deputy editor of The Times, although it is often attributed to former Newsnight anchor Jeremy Paxman. The popular misconception was that Paxman kept this thought in mind as he conducted…

In the past two years, most of the UK’s largest construction firms have unveiled targets for cutting carbon emissions. However, with a distinct lack of standards, they can be tough to compare. Zak Garner-Purkis investigates

In 2014, Interserve set itself a “big, hairy, audacious goal” – or BHAG, as ex-finance director…

With so many of the UK's largest construction companies revealing targets around carbon emissions, Construction News decided to gather them all together in one place to enable readers to compare

Targets are based on the publicly available material on carbon reduction, published by companies in the last two years. N/A…