Last Wednesday evening (18th May) saw the Lancashire Construction Best Practice Programme (@lcbpc) meet at the recently opened, BREEAM Outstanding Brockholes Visitor Center (@visitBrockholes)for a programme of speakers on a sustainability in the built environment theme.
Martin Brown, (@fairsnape) as chair of the club, welcomed delegates and introduced the speakers, pointing out the evening would touch on the three key elements of sustainability -ie the triple bottom line of environmental, economical and social, or fit for planet, purpose and people.
Martin posed a challenge to the delegates – who at a senior / director role in your organisation is really driving sustainability and your transition to a low carbon economy? (See Carbon Diet for Boards)
Ian Selby (LWT) opened the first of three short talks from LWT with an overview of the Brockholes Center development, making the interesting comment that the Lancashire Wildlife Trust is now one of the leading environmental developers in the North West. The low impact design and the pursut of BREEAM Outstanding was key, aligned to the Trusts vision of ‘living lightly on the earth’
Clare Kenny (LWT) described the work of the LWT going forward, the need for fund raising, and the LWT Mosslands carbon capture scheme for business (naturalcarboncapture). David Atherton (LWT) talked in more detail the steps necessary to gain the BREEAM Outstanding standard, suggesting that BREEAM Outsanding has added value but in itself is not value, citing a number of tick box items only necessary to get the standard, including the lit cycle track that when it met the unlit public track in a field plunges cyclists into darkness.
Leadership, committment and buy in are essential for success in sustainability was Joe Moxham (Carefoot) of Carefoot’s message in his overview of their three year road map, focusing on the measurement and reduction targets for construction carbon, water and energy use, through the use of constructco2
David Inman (@DIEMLtd) (Diem Ltd) highlighted the need for effective management of waste, from a legal and business and cost benefit perspective, and following the theme set by Joe, on the reduction of carbon achievable through waste reduction.
Successful sustainability management needs diverse thinking, was the theme for Chrissi McCarthy (@CChrissi)(Constructing Equality) who outlined the construction sectors rather poor performance on diversity issues and the benefits of profits and growth being seen in other sectors that have a higher level of diversity.
Martin summed up, thanking the speakers and returning to the LWT vision of ‘living lightly on the earth’, remarking at the similarlity with other organisations such as Patagonia ‘do no harm’ (which, like LWT they also apply to their construction activities), wondering how built environment organisations in the UK could embrace and live with such visions.
The event was video recorded by Dave Severns Jones (@severnsjones) (it was hoped to stream live but connectivity was not available), The recording, along with the slides will be available very soon.
The nest Lancashire Construction Best Practice Club event is on June 23rd with a focus on meet the bidder.
Fairsnape 
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