Sustainable
Structures
"The crisis of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss are two of the most serious issues of our time. Buildings and construction play a major part, accounting for nearly 40% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions whilst also having a significant impact on our natural habitats." UK Structural Engineers Declare.
As part of our commitment to minimise the impact of construction on the climate breakdown and biodiversity loss of the planet, sustainability is embedded into my design process, from start to end. This includes:
- Raising awareness of the climate and biodiversity emergencies
- Evaluating all new projects to contribute positively to mitigating climate breakdown
- Collaborating and sharing knowledge with clients, architects, engineers and contractors
- Where viable, upgrade existing buildings rather than demolish them
Sustainability Targets
There are many opportunities throughout a project to mitigate the impact of the project on the environment. As structural engineers, we have an impact on several of these.
At the start of the project, we can present these opportunities and agree targets for the project, which will form part of the project brief.
Early involvement on a project is key. For example, often by making minor changes to the proposed design at the concept stage, the amount of steel, concrete, and other materials can be greatly reduced, which is of great benefit.
During the design process, we will continue to monitor ongoing design development against the agreed targets, work with the team to identify other opportunities as they arise, and share knowledge as it develops.
Embodied Carbon
All materials and construction activities used to build a building contain embodied carbon. This includes all concrete, steel, timber and masonry structures, and includes other activities such as excavation and the temporary works.
As the structure can contain a high percentage of the overall embodied carbon in the project, its important for your structural engineer to be able to calculate the amount of embodied carbon in the proposed structure, and identify opportunities for reducing it where possible.
We include calculation of the structural embodied carbon in every project, as we believe by raising awareness of this, we can best engage the client, design team and contractor to have the biggest effort in reducing the impact of the project on the environment.
We do this using the guidance published by The Institution of Structural Engineers, and provide a score based on the proposed SCORS rating system. Click here to find out more.
Anything Else?
Yes! We believe that with good design, impact of a project can be reduced from the beginning of its design, right through to its end of life.
- Lean Design: The design process will explore alternative framing materials, structural grids and stability solutions to help meet the carbon targets for the project.
- Circular economy: If you have an existing building, could this be seen as part of kits which can be reused as parts new building? We can review the condition of existing buildings and suggest solutions for reuse.
- End of life: This will depend on the type of structure being proposed. For example, heavy weight structures may be suitable for continued use with minimum intervention, whereas we aim to make lightweight structures demountable for use in other locations, either as a whole, or in parts.
If you are doing works to an existing building, we can provide feasibility for adapting, extending or converting a building, with the aim of preventing its demolition.
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