Delivering sustainability has become the overarching objective that we should all strive to achieve but what does it really mean and, more pertinently, what can manufacturers do to improve the sustainability of their operations and products? John Tebbit of Construction Products Association suggests some practical options.

Within the Construction Products Association one of our four key activities is ‘Delivering Sustainable Construction’; the objective of which is to encourage the construction products industry to develop products and processes that contribute to a more sustainable built environment. This is part of the overall aim for sustainable development which has best been defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability is not just environment, it covers two other areas as well, namely economics and society as shown below.

For the construction industry there has been since June this year the joint government industry Strategy for Sustainable Construction. There has been some criticism that it is a collection of activities and programmes rather than a high level strategic vision but that rather misses the point. What is needed now are actions rather than grand visions, standards rather than warm words and specifying of products that meet these standards.

Construction as a whole is committed to working on six principles.

These are:
• Procurement and integration
• Commitment to People
• Client Leadership
• Sustainability (you could argue that everything is sustainability but lets not go there!)
• Design Quality
• Health and Safety

These are all detailed in the Strategic Forum’s Construction Commitments publication available from http://www.strategicforum.org.uk/ but to be frank they are pretty high level and for companies and trade associations they need to be made more specific and given time scales. Fortunately there is a second publication, also from the Strategic Forum, which does exactly that. It is called the ‘Strategic Forum targets to 2012’ and puts down numbers and dates (by 2010 and 2012). As before, these are targets for the whole construction industry and it has to be recognised that no single part of the industry be it a sector (plant hire or product supply), a trade association or company can deliver on the whole industry targets.

For example one target in health and safety is to reduce the incidence level of fatal and major accidents for the industry by 10% year on year from 2000 levels. As a company all one can do is work on one’s own company, suppliers and customers. It is important that others, particularly government, recognise this and do not try to pin responsibility for the whole industry onto constituent parts who are trying to do their best in their area. An organisation can only change what it can affect or control.

The industry sustainability targets are:
• A 50% reduction of construction, demolition and excavation waste to landfill compared to 2008.
• A 15% reduction in carbon emissions from construction processes and associated transport compared to 2008 levels.
• 25% of products used in construction projects to be from schemes recognised for responsible sourcing.
• Water usage in the manufacturing and construction phase reduced by 20% compared to 2008 usage
• All construction projects in excess of £1 million to have biodiversity surveys carried out and necessary actions instigated.
For product manufacturers the Association has decided to focus on even more specific actions namely:
• Responsible Sourcing - Establish a common framework within which trade associations can develop sector Schemes. There is standards development work now with BRE & BSI.
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) inventory data of construction products - improve accessibility for designers and specifiers
• Packaging waste - reduce the quantity produced by the manufacturing sector
• Sector Resource Efficiency Plans / Agreements - Facilitate an increase in the number of material sectors that have prepared and subsequently implemented such plans
• Environmental profiling of products - encourage our members to increase the number of products that are profiled

For the plant hire sector there may well be different actions, particularly in the area of reducing carbon emissions from construction processes and transport but there may also be areas where producers and plant hirers can work together, such as in packaging reduction. In this area the Association is working with DEFRA, BRE, the Environment Agency, WRAP and Envirowise to reduce the quantity of packaging waste produced by the manufacturing sector.  A workshop held on the 24 September to get all parties looking at ways manufacturers can seek to reduce the quantity of waste packaging they produce by looking at optimum design, by using reusable containers, by using recycled materials etc. There is clearly an interface between product packaging and how it is handled, particularly on site and that is where plant design and availability is important.

For any company or trade association there are general prerequisites to meet before trying to set targets and improve. There is a need to have clear policies, charters and action plans on sustainability. These must address areas of weakness which can only be reliably found by measuring, measuring and even more measuring. It is important to focus on the areas which have a big impact and that the company can influence. For plant hire one would imagine that these would include durability and reliability of plant (costs of downtime, servicing and spares), use of fuel, lubricants and other consumables, productivity, safety of equipment and possibly the impact of the manufacture of the plant if a whole life impact is to be calculated.

If the industry is prepared to put in the investment then KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) can be a powerful spur to improvement. Companies can then benchmark themselves against their competitors and see how well they are doing. A good place to start is http://www.kpizone.com   Good targets should be able to produce results that benefit society, the environment and the company.