Sticking with traditional approaches won’t bring the innovation that we need to reduce costs, says Temple Group's Martin Gibson.

The construction industry and government together recognised the need to improve the efficiency of the way we do things and reduce the carbon emissions from infrastructure development. The Green Construction Board (GCB) is helping to drive this by getting companies to sign up to the Built Environment Commitment. Companies that sign this are committing to playing their part in providing lower carbon, resource efficient solutions that also cost less. 

It is coming up to a year since the Infrastructure Carbon Review, which was endorsed by a wide range of stakeholders across infrastructure, was published. These organisations signed up to working together to provide leadership, implement innovation and encourage their supply chains to respond to carbon reduction objectives. By signing up to the Built Environment Commitment organisations can join these leaders and incorporate wider targets around materials, waste, water and other resource efficient principles. However, making a commitment is one thing, delivering it is another.

"When working to tight deadlines and low margins, it is very tempting to stick to methods and procedures that we know. Unfortunately, sticking with traditional approaches won’t bring the innovation that we need to reduce costs."

One important way to reduce carbon is to use less resource in delivering infrastructure improvements. Reducing the amount of resource used has considerable benefits in reducing costs as well as reducing the environmental impact of what we do. Using less material is an obvious way to lower  the burdens of extraction, manufacture and transport that are associated with it. 

When working to tight deadlines and low margins, it is very tempting to stick to methods and procedures that we know. Unfortunately, sticking with traditional approaches won’t bring the innovation that we need to reduce costs. There are now well-established alternative approaches to resource efficiency that will bring innovation. 

Temple and others have been working with WRAP to develop its Resource Management Planning process for the construction sector. This has included working with a number of leading construction companies to trial the process. 

The process has been designed to be flexible so companies can tailor it to their own priorities and technical capability. It is a five stage process that is similar in structure to the familiar continuous improvement cycle. The results of each stage are recorded in a folder of documents, which can either be from templates available from WRAP or a company’s own design.

There is plenty of guidance to help companies adopt the process and lots of ways of getting started to suit the projects in hand. Whichever approach a company chooses, it is clear that the savings in materials and increases in efficiency that come from good resource management planning can help deliver Built Environment Commitment objectives. 

Martin Gibson is head of operations at Temple Group