The Institution of Civil Engineers has launched a survey amongst its members to analyse the carbon impact of its enabling infrastructure works
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has launched a survey into the carbon impact of preparatory works, including enabling infrastructure such as demolition or earthworks.
Preparatory works are often essential for construction projects, large-scale developments, or regeneration projects, and so their carbon output is an important factor to look at.
The survey will yield important information
The survey, lead by Expedition Engineering and the Useful Simple Trust, takes the form of an online survey for ICE members, clients, designers, and suppliers.
The survey includes questions about the respondent’s role in construction, the size of the organisation, and whether carbon impact was a key consideration during past projects.
This will give information about how important carbon is considered to be during these projects currently, as well as the impact of early-stage decisions, and what the barriers are to effective carbon management.
This in turn will lead to the development of solutions and pinpointing of factors that can reduce carbon emissions.
ICE are working to reduce carbon impact
ICE are working to reduce carbon output through various initiatives, such as the Carbon Champion initiative, launched in 2021, in which civil engineers can send their projects in for application, and the project will be reviewed by experts.
If deemed fit, those engineers will be rewarded as a Carbon Champion, being officially recognised by ICE.
Another carbon initiative is The Carbon Project, also launched in 2021, and is a project ran by ICE which produces a series of blogs and technical papers, acknowledging the grave importance of climate change and the construction industry’s role in it.
The papers work towards reducing carbon impact in infrastructure, making the ICE survey the latest of their work towards this important goal.
Marietta Gontikaki, associate sustainability consultant at Useful Projects, said: “With an estimated 2.5m new homes by 2031 and significant investment in new neighbourhoods planned for the coming years, the UK’s construction industry is presented with a crucial challenge to deliver high-quality, sustainable places within national carbon budgets.
“Together with strategic urban planning, the design of enabling infrastructure in major developments holds the key to fully unlocking this potential of sustainable and regenerative neighbourhoods. Well-designed infrastructure can support low carbon connectivity; enable net-zero in operation; make space for nature; build climate resilience; contribute to better management of resources; future-proof the site and the city-wide services it is connected to. Substantial carbon savings on-site and beyond are an inherent part of these outcomes.
“At the same time, all the elements of this infrastructure have a carbon impact to build, operate and maintain which needs to be addressed. Whilst the industry has made good progress with understanding the upfront carbon impact of buildings, the carbon impact of enabling infrastructure projects is significantly underexplored.
“The survey will help us understand where the value chain (developers, designers, contractors etc) currently stands when it comes to considering and managing the carbon impacts of infrastructure, identifying barriers to optimum outcomes and ways to overcome them.”
