BCM Agency shares some of the highlights and industry insights from Specifier Summit 2024, the event that asked ‘Sustainability: at What Cost?’
On 7th November 2024, specifying professionals from the construction industry and associated disciplines came together to discuss one of the most pressing themes in the sector today, and its financial, technical, environmental, and social implications – sustainability.
Entitled Specifier Summit 2024 – Sustainability: at What Cost?, this event, organised and run by BCM Agency, took busy professionals out of their hectic business environments for a few hours, and transplanted them into the tranquil surroundings of Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire.
Here, they were able to take time out to absorb the speakers’ presentations, ask questions, and start conversations over lunch and in networking breaks.
And the speakers’ presentations were thought-provoking, sobering, and at times controversial.
From keynote Sir Jonathon Porritt’s extensive sustainability critique born of his experience as a former Green Party leader and non-executive director of construction giant Willmott Dixon, to energy efficiency insights, building safety considerations, and some revealing industry statistics, the presentation content laid bare both challenges and opportunities for sustainability in construction, and were hugely well received by the audience.
What follows is a collective flavour of the themes of the day’s proceedings, the points made, questions answered, and conversations had. It’s a testament to how urgent topics can garner serious attention when like-minded people are given the chance to meet, talk, and listen.
Speakers, sponsors, supporters, and exhibitors
We were pleased to welcome to the event the following speakers:
- Sir Jonathon Porritt – Co-founder of the Future Forum and lead on environment for the World Economic Forum. Former co-chair of the Green Party. Presentation title: Sustainability: at what Cost?
- Simon Green – Director, Green Building Design. Presentation title: Greener Buildings, Greater Returns
- David Aitchison – Head of BCC Consultancy. Presentation title: Building Safety – with Sustainability in Mind
- Matthew Tyrrell – Business Development Manager. Presentation title: Impacting the Specification Process: Insights for Manufacturers
The event also featured:
- Sponsors: BCC, Futurebuild, Green Building Design, Hertfordshire Building Control, Space Architectural Design
- Supporters: Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce
- Charity partner: Mates in Mind
- Media partner: PBC Today
Construction: playing sustainability catch-up
Sir Jonathon Porritt kicked off the event with a critical assessment of the state of sustainability in the construction sector in the past, and a more optimistic outlook for the present and future – with some caveats.
Legislation like the Future Homes Standard (FHS), for example, due to be introduced in 2025, which aims to reduce carbon emissions in new build homes by 75 – 80%, would, he said, have been “much more on track for all new homes to be net zero” had it not been preceded by Boris Johson’s Conservative Government.
David Aitchison also discussed how improved competence frameworks and digital tools like the ‘Golden Thread’ can mitigate risks and enhance long-term sustainability in construction.
The ‘Golden Thread’ of digital information is a transformative tool for sustainability. It allows for transparent record-keeping and promotes collaboration among duty holders to achieve sustainable building outcomes.
He discussed how the Building Safety Act 2022 and associated regulations are paving the way for a safer, more sustainable construction framework. The Building Safety Act introduces robust oversight mechanisms like the Building Safety Regulator. These are designed to embed sustainability into safety regulations, ensuring long-term environmental and safety goals.
But David also highlighted the role of the Building Safety Regulator in not only ensuring compliance but also fostering industry collaboration.
This was a topic that Sir Jonathon also covered, berating the previous lack of collaboration between industry players for poor progress in many areas of sustainability, and interestingly this theme also came out in Matthew Tyrrell’s Futurebuild presentation on the recent industry-wide survey it has carried out.
In it, respondents cite increased industry collaboration as the second most important factor in overcoming the barriers to sustainability in the built environment.
In fact, 95% of respondents said that industry collaboration was either ‘extremely important’ or ‘very important’ in achieving sustainability goals – a figure that leaves little, if any doubt as to the importance of sustainability dialogue within the industry.
Sir Jonathon was also quick to point out some very basic measures that could contribute hugely to reduced energy use and carbon emissions in both new and existing buildings, but simply aren’t applied effectively by homeowners or housebuilders.
Insulation, for example, should be a minimum of 270 millimetres thick, rising ideally to 400 millimetres, yet the insulation fitted is often much lighter than this, and thousands of houses in the UK have never been insulated by their owners at all!
David Aitchison echoed this, highlighting that changes such as increased insulation requirements and airtightness targets under the FHS are significant steps. These will lead to lower carbon emissions and enhanced energy efficiency in new constructions.
Politics and ideology also made a further appearance in Sir Jonathon’s presentation, as he memorably quoted David Cameron’s “green crap” rebuttal of sustainability measures, and, like many in the room, voiced his objection to the spectre of the US going into sustainability reverse under a new Trump administration populated by climate change sceptics.
Regulatory changes: will they be effective?
Sir Jonathan’s presentation naturally begs the question as to whether legislation and policy reforms are perhaps the ‘stick’ needed to force the sustainability agenda in the construction industry – and although we might expect such changes to be unpopular, the research from Futurebuild actually paints a somewhat different picture.
Policy reforms were the single highest-scoring choice of changes that would remove barriers to sustainability in the built environment, with 30.4% saying that industry-wide standards and regulations would drive the industry towards net zero.
Simon Green, director of Green Building Design, took up this theme with his exploration of forthcoming changes to Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and MEES (Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard) ratings.
He was not uncritical of the way both EPC and MEES goalposts have arguably been moved in the past, with different calculation methods giving wildly varying results, but it did seem from his presentation that the forthcoming changes do indeed have teeth, as from April 2030 it is likely that commercial landlords will no longer be able to rent or sell buildings with an EPC rating inferior to a B or C.
Coming from a slightly different angle, David Aitchison of BCC posited that recent changes to broader building regulations – and the authority with which they can be enforced – could help to embed not only safety but also sustainability into building control and signoff practices.
But Simon Green also made an excellent point – and one beautifully in keeping with the theme of the event – when he explained that sustainability must start with affordability.
He gave the example of his company’s Energy Feasibility approach, which gives landlords a clear roadmap for progressive sustainability actions that are not only financially manageable, but will also generate measurable returns.
Moving the sustainability needle: where to start?
In many ways, what came to light during the event was a number of open doors and quick wins that gave cause for some cautious optimism around the viability of sustainability as a concept in the construction industry.
One of the most uplifting observations came from Matthew Tyrrell and the Futurebuild industry research, which showed that what excited many construction professionals most about innovation in their industry were sustainability-related themes like renewables, circular economy products, natural building products, and net zero solutions.
The will to engage, then, is certainly there, but the same research also showed that cost was the biggest barrier to sustainability adoption, so where and how can that adoption begin?
Focusing on how the long-term benefits of sustainable approaches temper the pain of costs was one of the original discussions behind the preparation of the Summit, and Simon Green’s presentation illustrated this ‘conversational shift’ neatly, by demonstrating the benefits of heat pumps over gas boilers.
Even a low-end air source heat pump, he explained, is 3.5 times more energy-efficient than even the newest and most advanced condensing gas boiler, and this inevitably results in far lower carbon emissions.
Coupled with renewable energy sources (the air source heat pumps do require electricity to run) and effective insulation to reduce both heat gains and losses, this technology reduces the impact on the environment massively.
It should be a no-brainer for many property owners and managers – but unfortunately it isn’t. Here’s why.
Understanding the factors that militate against sustainability
Overly cheap gas is a big issue here, according to Simon. Whilst an air source heat pump beats a gas boiler on efficiency and emissions hands-down, per kilowatt hour, gas is just as cheap as the air source heat pump – and assuming there’s a gas boiler in place already, there are no upfront installation costs incurred.
It was Simon’s view that gas has been too cheap for too long, and that the Government should apply taxes to discourage its use, and certainly it seems that until air source heat pumps and gas boilers can compete on a level playing field of running costs, the sustainability benefits make no sense financially.
Certainly, the issue of financial support also raises its head in Futurebuild’s research, with almost 31% of respondents – the largest for this question – favouring Government incentives as the most effective way to achieve net zero.
But conversations and questions in and around the room revealed some other factors that militate against sustainability in construction.
The skills shortage, for example, became a talking point, with the lack of sustainability training in the industry often leading to sustainable materials and technologies being incorrectly installed and then delivering poor energy efficiency outcomes.
And a glance at Futurebuild’s figure also bears the story out: education and training rank highly as a sustainability requirement in itself, but also as a necessary ingredient in the industry collaboration that was seen by Sir Jonathan Porritt as such a vital precondition for sustainability success.
Exploring the sustainability of data centres
One of the fascinating themes that also came up at the Summit was how societal developments, driven by technology and perpetuated by human behaviours, and expectations, impact construction sustainability in ways they never could have before.
Audience questions to our expert panel around the construction of data centres, for example, revealed some mighty sustainability challenges not only around how these buildings and powered and cooled, but around the way they proliferate in response to our use of technology applications.
The humble photo on a mobile phone app like Facebook, for example, is one of the factors driving the construction of many new ‘cold hard storage’ data centres, as app companies scramble to keep pace with the amount of data stored on their systems.
Every one of these photos causes the data centre to consume additional power, so one unconventional solution to improving sustainability in construction is reducing that energy use by simply deleting unwanted and unneeded photos from your phone!
Conclusions- and looking forward to 2025
As an event, the Specifier Summit was both focused and relaxed, shining a light on some difficult themes, whilst demonstrating ways forward and enabling delegates to engage freely in dialogue with their peers.
The event was not an instant panacea for the construction industry’s sustainability challenges. But it was a platform to deliver new insights into the momentum that sustainability is gathering in the specifying professions, and to help set the direction of travel for the immediate and longer-term future.
All this was down, of course, to the contributions made by our expert speakers, but also to the generous support of our sponsors and exhibitors – and to all of these key people, as well as to the venue team at Knebworth Barns, we give our heartfelt thanks.
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