The DfMA Toolkit embeds a wealth of project and supplier data, enabling users to benchmark against their own projects and make more informed and sustainable decisions with the aid of the transport directions and carbon calculator, says Alan Saleh, production innovation manager at L&Q and workstream lead at COLAB
In light of the climate and energy crisis, sustainability in construction can no longer be overlooked. In order to honour the commitments to net zero carbon, it is imperative for the housing sector to go above and beyond the operational energy efficiency requirements of the Future Homes Standard and minimise emissions across the entirety of the construction lifecycle, including embodied carbon.
Whole-life Cycle Carbon (WLC) assessments, currently required on strategic developments as part of the London Plan, consider carbon emissions over the lifetime of an asset, including emissions from materials, transportation, construction, operational use, future demolition and subsequent disposal. Such assessments should be adopted widely with carbon-cutting measures implemented where practicable.
The award-winning COLAB DfMA Toolkit, developed by L&Q alongside our partners Virtual Viewing, HTA Design and Hawkins Brown, presents an opportunity to begin to address embodied carbon emissions. It is a digital application which promotes DfMA best practice and facilitates the implementation of MMC on housing projects.
DfMA and MMC can bring about a myriad of sustainability credentials for projects, including the use of greener materials and more efficient processes, minimising design and construction waste, facilitating disassembly and reuse, reducing pollution and disruption around site, as well as the reduction of HGV movements in comparison with traditional projects.
The DfMA Toolkit can enable clients to capitalise on these credentials and on the advantages of using DfMA, with data a key part of this process.
Data feature in each of the four main functions of the toolkit, taking various forms: 3D models, qualitative guidance, graphs and charts, as well as project and supplier data points and map locations. The wealth and variety of MMC-led data within the toolkit serve to help upskill the industry in offsite and encourage organisations to increase their uptake of DfMA and MMC for building homes. And the key to unlocking these benefits is data benchmarking.
How to use the Geolocation Map function
Focusing, for example, on the Geolocation Map function, this allows users to browse through a directory of MMC-led projects mapped across the UK. These exemplar projects represent a snapshot of the COLAB partners’ MMC portfolios with a repertoire of information and metrics which include data on the MMC products/systems, MMC categories, MMC suppliers, number of units and unit mix, among others. The MMC suppliers for these projects are also showcased on the map with links to the relevant L&Q framework agreements, if available.
A typical user of the Geolocation Map looking to adopt and implement MMC on their projects can browse through the project entries to gain visibility of successful MMC project examples provided by the COLAB partners, who are experts in delivering MMC/DfMA and are at the cutting edge of innovation in the construction industry. The user can filter the projects by a number of criteria of interest and ultimately benchmark them against their own project.
The level of information embedded within the map instils confidence in users new to MMC and equips them with data to help them initiate early discussions with the relevant supply chain members and even utilise the existing frameworks to facilitate procurement. Last but not least, users can capitalise on sustainability metrics extracted from the transport directions and carbon calculator.
The interactive and intuitive directions tool and calculator enables the user to drop a pin at any location on the map and request directions to one or more desired suppliers on the list, which in turn can be filtered by MMC product and category. The tool, powered by Google Maps and an in-house carbon calculator, then concurrently plots routes/directions between the pin and all the selected suppliers, highlighting distances and the equivalent carbon emissions for each route. These figures present an invaluable opportunity for users to compare and contrast supplier selections and make decisions based on sustainability implications.
Transport directions and carbon calculator
Transportation is part and parcel of the construction process, and the user-friendly transport directions and carbon calculator tool provides users with a powerful way to assess transport sustainability implications. The user is granted a level of control to make active choices in the selection of MMC manufacturers. Needless to say, there are numerous factors which need to be considered and assessed when choosing a supplier but the calculator introduces an additional data point for benchmarking suppliers against one another.
In the future, the Geolocation Map could be opened up to capture projects and suppliers beyond those of the COLAB consortium. The transport carbon calculator could well be integrated with embodied carbon calculators and/or WLC assessment functions. The vision for it is a malleable one in which it can evolve to encapsulate user feedback, lessons learned and the latest innovations in the industry.
In the interim, the DfMA Toolkit and Geolocation Map function are available for users far and wide to download, get a digital glimpse of the possibilities of DfMA and MMC, use a wealth of project and supplier data to benchmark against their own projects and harness the power of transport carbon data to make more informed and sustainable decisions.
The DfMA Toolkit is an Innovate UK (UKRI) funded project. This funding is from the Transforming Construction Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, part of the Construction Sector Deal.
Alan Saleh
Workstream lead
COLAB
