More to do on reducing the carbon footprint of our buildings

During Green Building Week, Adam Stephenson, UK Sales Manager – Protective Coatings, takes time to reflect on how both the construction industry and AkzoNobel as a business can help the UK #BuildBackBetter

Despite the ongoing volatility brought about by Covid-19 in 2020, climate change remains one of the greatest challenges of our time. It’s now common knowledge that buildings and construction account for 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions with a significant proportion of this embodied carbon. The construction industry continues to make strides towards decreasing the carbon footprint of our buildings, however there is still much more we can do. Early in September, the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) released a joint industry report exploring the design, delivery and costs associated with delivering net zero carbon buildings. The report itself demonstrated how residential and office buildings can be designed and built in line with 2025 and 2030 net zero targets with cost increases from 3.5 -17% depending upon the scope, building type and targets to be met.

Within this report, I found an interesting section on ‘Reducing Construction Impacts’ which sets specific CO2e/m2 targets (the amount of carbon per m2). As manufacturers of construction products, this is an area in which we should not only be playing a significant role but leading the field.

Promoting the use of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) in all new buildings for all materials seems like a good place to start – without this transparency any calculations undertaken are only ever theoretical. This fits in broadly with the World Green Building Council’s embodied carbon report from September 2019 which targeted material manufacturers to have entire ranges with EPDs by 2030. Getting this transparency is the place to start.

As we have undertaken EPDs for our products you quickly realise that it’s generally not only the raw materials themselves which have significant impacts on the embodied carbon of products. It is in fact necessary to take a wider view which includes raw material transportation; manufacturing site inputs and outputs; and transportation to the final customer site which can have important impacts on the carbon footprint of our products.

Making our manufacturing sites more energy efficient and using renewable energy sources are key to supporting our Planet targets to achieve 50% emission reduction in 2030. In the UK, we already use electricity from 100% renewable sources.

All food for thought, as we start to predict how the world will look post Covid-19 and, to use one of the government’s slogans, really play our part in how we can ‘#BuildBackBetter’.

Watch this space!