Tag Archives: sustainability

Biomimetics and Biophilia – the new sustainable construction?

There is a new language and lexicon emerging within the world of built environment sustainability, from circular economy to biophilia, indicating a maturing of construction’s approach, moving from better waste management to circular economy thinking, from biodiversity management to biophilia.

I participated in a brilliant tweetchat yesterday evening, under the hashtag of #CityofLife, hosted by Melissa Sterry (http://melissasterry.com) and others with some very knowledgeable contributors from Northern Europe and elsewhere, exploring the concepts of Biomimetics in buildings and cities. There will be a transcript soon and more debates, so watch this #CityofLife space.

It did strike me though, whilst being comfortable with these new terms in sustainability, many readers and subscribers to this blog may not be, so here is a quick primer.

Biomimetics – learning from nature as models for building design and construction. See Building a Bionic City (Intriguingly George Mokhtar (@GeorgeMokhtar) tweeted yesterday before the chat “biomimetics, basically the reason I started using 3D models” proving, maybe, a foundation link with BIM?)

Biomimcry, imitation of nature for the purpose of solving complex problems. Perhaps the best source of information can be found at Biomimicry38 and the Janine Benyus Biomimicry TED talk

Biophillia, exploring the intrinsic bond between humans and nature, most commonly from a health and well being perspective of building users and occupants.

lbc biophillia

Biophllic thinking is core philosophy for the Living Building Challenge and suggests the adoption of Richard Kellert’s Six Biophilic Design Elements, (roughly 70 design attributes, from egg-shaped buildings a historical connection to place)

Why Fairsnape?

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I have been asked a lot recently on how my business name came about:

Fairsnape is a hill in the Forest of Bowland Fells, and was visible from my office window at the time I set up the business. (It hasn’t moved, we have, half a mile or so down the road). I wanted a name that wasn’t just tied to consultancy in construction, but one that could be flexible, grow with my interests in for example the outdoors and sustainability, as well as business improvement support.

And that has worked well.

But there is more significance in the name. Fairsnape is a minor hill at 510m with superb views, south across the Lancashire plains, north east, the Yorkshire Dales and north west to the Lake District. The later being inspirational to move on and explore greater ranges, from the Lakes to Scotland to the Alps to the Himalayas, as we did many years ago.

And so it is with sustainability. I delight in helping organisations climb that first hill, away from the flatlands of environmental management, and then on towards greater and bigger achievements. Something of Ray Andersons Mount Sustainability here I guess.

But, having discovered mindfulness of late, it is of course very fine to sit, contemplate and refresh, wherever you are on route, be it a mountain or a sustainability journey and not always to rush on to something new. In the words of Nan Shepherd in her inspirational Living Mountain book on the Cairngorms ‘I sat and listened to the waterfall until I didn’t hear it any more” An approach we can learn from for a new sustainable construction thinking.

Construction efficiency – plus ca change?

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In preparation for todays Lancashire Construction Best Practice event presentation on Building Down Barriers, I have been back tracking and hunting down material from the time of the projects. Back in the 90’s, presentations were on acetates on overhead projectors, the handouts raw photocopies of those acetates.

One of the slides in a presentation made to the Midlands Construction Quality Forum* by (I think) Clive Cain in 1996 illustrates the state of the industry at that time:

Nearly 2 decades later have we improved?

Since Building Down Barriers we have had many many strategies to improve efficiency, a recent (2006) study of labour efficiency showed a similar 30% of non productivity:

And today? How much of the total cost of a project is consumed by waste and inefficiency? Have we dropped below the anecdotal 40%?

Of course any inefficiency is un-sustainable from environmental, financial and social perspective. I am reminded of the Honda advert strap line that ‘everything we do goes into everything we do’. How much of what we do in construction goes into ‘making the building grow’

It is hoped that the Lancashire Construction Best Practice Club, in association with UCLAN will undertake facilitated research to address inefficiency and provide supported solutions. A local, Lancashire Building Down barriers, working with complete supply chains applying all the good approaches we advocate. Approaches that could include BIM, lean , cluster supply chains, collaborative working, carbon management, facilitated continuous improvement and importantly circular economy thinking.

Watch this space!

* a 1990’s innovative community of practice, comprising quality managers from construction companies with a passion to share and learn across companies.

Tweetchat Week: w/c 4th Feb 2014

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Next week is shaping up to be a brilliant week of tweetchats and twitter based conversations.

Checkout:

European Green Build

First up on Tuesday 4th Feb I will be interviewing Building the Future (based in Catalonia, Romania and Brazil) with @C21EXPO_Europe as part of the Construction21 Euro Green Build virtual Expo tweetchat series. We will be discussing sustainability communities in the built environment.

>>> Join this conversation on this chat at 11am UK, 12 CET using the hashtag #ExpoC21Chat

Sustainability Stakeholder Engagement

Later the same day at 7 pmUK (11am PT and 2pm ET) I am delighted to be in conversation with Peggy Ward, sustainability officer at Kimberley Clark. Peggy, based in Appleton WI, USA will be explaining how Kimberly Clark engage with and learn from their stakeholder groups. This conversation is part of the monthly Sustainable Leadership Conversations series created by Andrea Learned and Martin Brown (see our Google+ community pages)

>>> Join with this conversation on the 4th Feb at 11am PST, 2pm ET and 7pm UK using the #sustldrconv hashtag

Living Building Challenge with the UKGBC PinPoint

And then, on the 6th February, as part of the UKGBC’s Pinpoint programme taking place 3-7 Feb to increase awareness of The Living Building Challenge in the UK with UKGBC members, we will be hosting, with @UKGBC Pinpoint, a conversation with Amanda Sturgeon, VP of the Living Building Challenge at the International Living Futures Institute in Seattle.

>>> Join this conversation at 11am PST, 2pm ET and 7pm UK using the #GVischat hashtag.

All of the above tweetchats will run for 60mins and provide ample opportunity to post questions to guests, share your experiences and comment on the subject matter.

We look forward to seeing you there, and if you would like to discuss how tweetchats can promote your organisation or sustainability initiatives please do get in touch.

Also of note next week is the #CSRChat with Susan McPherson on 6th Feb at 5pm UK

iSite Links:

Records of tweetchats and conversations

Are Tweetchats: the new digital benchmarking?

#tweetchats … observations + how to

Entering the The Guardian Sustainable Business Awards could be good for you

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Business is evolving, organisations big and small are taking new approaches to embedding sustainability and seeing results. The Guardian Sustainable Business Awards celebrates innovation and impact in corporate sustainability and the people who are making business better.

Categories include the Built Environment but also the current themes important to innovation and impact of the built environment sustainability agenda, and regularly covered by blogs such as this: collaboration, communication, net positive, restorative sustainability, natural capital, social impact, supply chain, waste, carbon and energy and more.

Why you should enter the awards

How to enter Entries close on 7 February 2014

The Categories …

Communicating sustainability Inspiring action on sustainability issues is key. We’re looking for stand-out examples of campaigns that have engaged and entertained. Eliciting action and leading to tangible shifts in behaviour

Net positive It is no longer enough to do less bad. Progressive businesses are seeking ways to be regenerative in their activity, this award is for those businesses that are taking tangible steps towards making a net positive contribution to communities, society and the environment.

Work Is your organisation a great place to work? Creating healthy, happy working environments is part of being a sustainable business. This award will go to an organisation that seeks to foster a culture of health and happiness for all employees.

Natural capital From water to healthy soil, pollinators to forests, nature underpins 100% of economic activity. This is an award for an organisation that is trailblazing a strategy to appropriately account for the value nature provides it with.

Social impact Business’ has huge potential to contribute positively to society. This award is for a project or initiative that seeks to solve a challenging social issue whilst simultaneously creating shared value for the business.

Collaboration An award for a project or initiative that breaks down traditional barriers. We are looking for examples of several partners working together in non-traditional ways towards a goal that delivers truly sustainable outcomes.

Supply chain – sponsored by WRAP Global supply chains are vast and complex. This award is for initiatives that embed a respect for human, economic and environmental rights across a business or product’s supply chain.

Carbon & energy management Reducing business’ scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions is key to meeting the UK’s carbon reduction targets. This is an award for initiatives that take a holistic approach to measuring, managing and reducing emissions.

Waste From circular principles applied to design to projects achieving zero waste and re-manufacturing initiatives, rethinking waste is vital and this award is for projects or products that are at the leading-edge of that rethinking.

Built Environment – sponsored by Aecom An award for innovative re-developments or new-build projects that are at the leading-edge of approaches to reducing the built environment’s negative environmental impacts and raising its positive social impact.

…

Fairsnape is a media partner for The Guardian Sustainable Business Awards

Improving key elements in SME sustainability practices

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Environmental Leader reports on a new guide from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants that sets out 10 best practices to help SME’s use sustainability to benefit the environment, their bottom line, customers and society.

Each tip is backed up with case studies and links for further information. Built Environment case studies include the likes of Billington Structures.

The tips are very apt and useful for construction SME’s moving beyond environmental issues and a sustainability approach that still rests within the health and safety arrangements.

Take a broad view of sustainability. SME’s should look beyond environmental issues.
Define in detail what sustainability means to your company. This will help your company focus on the right goals.
Engage all stakeholders. Include customers, suppliers, investors and employees in the discussion.
Remember that you are not alone. National, international and industry-wide initiatives exist that help businesses become more sustainable.
Establish responsibility and communicate widely. Make sure senior management drives the policy, appoints sustainability champions and communicates the importance of sustainability to every level of the company.
Take it step by step. This is an evolution.
Walk the talk. Back up your company’s intent with meaningful actions. Never make the mistake of seeing sustainability as a marketing exercise.
Tie sustainability to profit. Make the link between consuming less water and electricity or producing less waste and improving profits clear within your business.
Measure, monitor and review. Develop clear metrics to track your progress and review them regularly.
Invest in the future. Many SMEs say the biggest investment is management time.

Sustainable Construction 10 years on – plus ca change?

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Sorting through old papers over the holiday break, I came across this call to action from 2004

So why is the construction industry so slow in adopting sustainability principles? There is more than enough sustainability knowledge in the marketplace to help organisations become more innovative, save costs and deliver a better product for their customers.

Business leaders and individuals are just not sufficiently engaged or enthused.

New entrants to our industry are beginning to expect high levels of ethical environmental and social performance. Clients are also beginning to expect higher standards and suppliers too are waking up to a better way of working. Organisations that do not adopt a sustainable approach will find it increasingly difficult to attract employees, clients and suppliers.

Now is the time to make the change and become more sustainable in everything we do.

The 2004 drivers for sustainability were based on risk management, driven in the main from client requirements (recall for example the influential MaSC – Managing Sustainable Construction programme launched that year) and we still ask the question if Business leaders and individuals are sufficiently engaged or enthused.

We have seen many strategies, targets and new drivers in the world of sustainable construction, the significance and danger of carbon wasn’t on the agenda back in 2004, the climate change wasn’t the issue as it is now, we barely understood CSR and social sustainability and we didn’t have social media as the powerful communication, learning and sharing tool.

And yet the approach to sustainable construction from contracting organisations remains the same. All too often I hear that “we only do it when the client or project demands it” And I notice increasingly that BREEAM (Very Good) projects seem to be losing the drive to change the way we sustainably construct – its business as usual for many working on such projects.

Going into 2014 we need to remain optimistic. Over the holiday period I have also been browsing some of the works of Richard Buckminster Fuller and struck by his quote

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

we need that new model now in construction, not one that challenges the existing – but makes a new way of doing things far more attractive and compelling on all counts. We can see a hint of this new model within the Living Building Challenge, Circular Economy and Restorative Sustainability thinking. For many reasons the built environment is known as the 40% sector, consuming 40% raw materials, producing 40% of total waste, contributing 40% traffic on roads, using 40% energy generated and so on.

Lets flip these negatives into positives and heal the future.

We can only describe what we do as sustainable when we take less from the environment and when we contribute more to society than we take.

(We will be discussing this theme in our monthly Sustainable Leadership Conversation tweetchat on Tuesday 7th Jan at 7pm UK / 11am PST – follow the #sustldrconv hashtag on twitter)

Are you pedalling on Square Wheels?

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Have we wasted a good crisis?

In an earlier blog post I used the expression of pedalling squares to illustrate how progress and development in sustainability is often a clunky and inefficient activity.

Within construction we have some great new round wheels available to us that will improve our business, our services to clients and image, for eg BIM, Social Media, Circular Economy and Restorative Sustainability to name a few. These nice new shiny round wheels are necessary in a construction organisations baggage – we need to use them in PQQ, PR and interviews to demonstrate a sense of being tuned into current industry improvement programmes

Many organisations have started to do a wheel change – some encouraged through the never waste a good crisis thinking – seeing the lean times as time for investment in the future, some through Innovation Vouchers or other funded support.

Think about starting 2014 with a more efficient approach by understanding how organisations – often your competitors – are implementing new wheels. Find out more.

Sustainability: in equilibrium … or pedalling squares?

A TQM for the social media, digital age?

Are Tweetchats: the new digital benchmarking?

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Twitter has come of age – we are seeing more mature, powerful, innovative and business focused use. In particular open tweetchats. Initially started as open brainstorms around a topic, tweetchats remain a powerful format, latterly they have matured into great learning/sharing conversations / interviews.

Tweet-chats generate great content, enable organisations or individuals to share and learn from others. An exemplar Tweetchat has to be the #CSRChat hosted by Susan McPherson (@susanmcp1) which can be seen as a digital version of the benchmarking visits that were the improvement tool for business back in the 90’s. These chats enable real insight to the CSR, Sustainability of leading organisations, and importantly the opportunity to engage, ask questions, get responses and add experience to the chat topic.

Good tweet chats creat a transcript record or report for future reading. I originally suggested that people just jump into the Tweetchat brainstorm, adding comment, holding small conversations with other attendees, and then … make sense of it afterwards and follow up on links, links and make face to face contact.

We have run some excellent tweetchats and built up a real body expertise, under the hashtags for example #GVisChat, #SustLdrsConv and #EXPOC21chat. In fact our first GVIsChat was way back in 2011. The reach of tweetchats can be impressive, with analytics from organisations such at @Tweetbinder.

What’s not to like? As with all good things there is a bandwagon approach that borders on spam- for example we have seen a rash of tweet-chats themed around a county or town, often tagged #anycountyhour these unstructured events offer little engagement and a free for all of promoting services or products.

#SustLdrConv – a monthly series of conversations around the topic of sustainability leadership, co hosted by Martin Brown @fairsnape in the UK and @AndreaLearned in the USA. Every Tuesday at 7pm UK 2pm ET and 11am PT

#EXPOc21chat – a series if twitter conversations related to the first European Virtual Green Build expo in February 2014.

Background: #tweetchats … observations + how to

#GVisChat – a monthly conversation supporting the Leeds Sustainability Instiutue Green Vision programme (and host to the Living Building Challenge UK collaborative

Conducted properly tweetchats can be a powerful digital version of benchmarking exercises, of a white paper, enabling a structured interview to air your position, comments and developments whilst allowing for real time input from other topic experts, advocates and practitioners.

Having developed a track record in successful tweetchats, we would be delighted to discuss how these online conversations can greatly assist your wider social media, digital or PR efforts.

Do we really need ‘Green BIM’?

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My understanding of BIM is that it is another important step on the built environments journey of improvement, integrated approaches and increased collaborative working. I find it rather disappointing then to see concepts of Green BIM or Sustainable BIM emerging.

If we are serious about holistic improvement then we should see sustainability and green issues baked in to BIM – not as a bolt on. BIM changes everything commented John Lorimer in our PPP event and Collaborative Working document earlier in the year. It must also change our thinking on sustainability as a core improvement issue.

BIM could force direction and set the pace on wider sustainability and circular economy issues – so for example when selecting materials from BIM libraries into a model procurement decisions can be made on: Transparency of product composition detailing the chemicals and ingredients, the ability to filter red list compliant materials, check the responsible sourcing issues relating to the product/manufacturer (think BES 6001 or JUST)

BIM, as an industry improvement tool, will fail if it permits the design of buildings that incorporate toxic materials (either in production, construction handling or in use) or socially unjust practices in manufacture or construction. Think Qatar World Cup football stadium design and construction. Although BIM designed we are now, as an afterthought applying a sustainability and responsibility sticking plaster.

PAS1192 Part 3 (BIM in operational phase) is out for consultation at the moment. The proposed standard focuses on hard FM- asset management and not people orientated soft FM. There is the danger we will not address the health issues of occupants within BIM development and particularly through material selection and management. Health only gets one mention in the proposed standard, and associated with Safety – under risk – there because we always use the word health when we use the word safety – without really thinking through the huge consequences. The draft doesn’t mention the word sustainability at all. (Note see The NBS article on the proposed standard here for more detail)

Just this week the USGBC released LEED v4 at GreenBuild 2013 – significant and controversial in that it includes health transparency issues in material and product selection. As this is the direction sustainable and resposnible construction is heading (think Google HQ and the Red List, think Living Building Challenge) it is only a matter of time before BREEAM addresses the issue.

This blog has been written as background thinking to supporting the Midge Hole UK Living Building Challenge design phase and my BIM Changes everything presentation to the Lancs Best Practice BIM event on 27th Nov, and supporting my Time to Heal the Future thinking.

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This blog has been written as background thinking to supporting the Midge Hole UK Living Building Challenge design phase and my BIM Changes everything presentation to the Lancs Best Practice BIM event on 27th Nov, and supporting my Time to Heal the Future thinking.

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