| A new BioRegional
report on the construction materials strategy for the UK’s
largest eco-village - Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED),
has been published. The Construction Materials Report is the first
report in the Toolkit for Carbon Neutral Developments series. The
report describes the rationale for chosen construction materials,
quantifies their environmental benefits and describes how they were
sourced, specified and used. The report is suitable for anyone who
is involved in construction from architects to council planners,
volume house builders to one off self build projects. The report
is funded by Biffaward, a multi-million pound environment fund which
utilises landfill tax credits donated by Biffa Waste Services and
the DTI’s partners in innovation programme.
BedZED is a project partnership
between The Peabody Trust housing association, BioRegional Development
Group and Bill Dunster Architects. BedZED comprises 82 homes and
office space. It enables residents to live sustainably, within their
fair share of the earth’s resources, without sacrificing a
modern, urban and mobile lifestyle. It aims to achieve this within
the normal constraints of a social housing budget.
Martin Bettington, Chairman of
Biffaward, said:
"The report will promote widespread use of reclaimed materials
in mainstream construction by producing and disseminating information
on the materials and methods used at BedZED, which has derived around
10 per cent of its construction materials from waste, including
timber, structural steel, doors, kerbstones, paving and aggregate.
This is an important project that will make a considerable impact
on reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill, Biffaward is pleased
to have been involved."
Materials in construction make
up over half of our resource use by weight and account for 30% of
all road freight in the UK. The environmental impacts of extracting,
processing and transporting these materials and then dealing with
their waste are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions,
toxic emissions, habitat destruction and resource depletion. The
report details how careful materials sourcing has a very significant
effect in reducing this negative environmental impact without any
additional cost. In many cases the environmental option is cheaper
that the more conventional alternative.
A comprehensive range of materials
are covered by the report from environmentally accredited and reclaimed
timber to concrete floor slabs, insulation, recycled sand and much
more.
Nicole Lazarus ZED Programme Manager
at BioRegional commented:
“If you want to help make a positive move towards greening
your construction activities this report is a very good place to
start. We have done the research and the hard work on site to make
it easy for those involved in the industry to stipulate, specify,
source and justify using green construction materials. ”
The report can be purchased from
BioRegional. A Construction materials seminar is planned for 17th
January 2003, if you would like to find out more please call 020
8404 4880, email info@bioregional.com
or visit our website www.bioregional.com. The next report in the
series is the Carbon Neutral Toolkit due for completion in early
2003.
Notes
Biffaward utilises Landfill Tax
Credits donated by Biffa Waste Services, the fund is currently worth
more than £10 million a year which includes contributions
from the acquisition of UK Waste.
The fund, managed by the Royal Society for Nature Conservation,
supports many worthwhile environmental projects involving local
communities, education, biodiversity, heritage and research into
sustainable waste management.
Biffa is one of the UK’s largest waste management companies
providing environmentally advanced waste recycling, handling and
disposal services for industry, commerce and local government.
The DTI’s Partners in Innovation
programme (PII) is a collaborative scheme which provides up to half
the costs of research and innovation (R&I) projects within the
construction sector. It is open to all UK companies, industry bodies,
institutions, research and technology organisations and universities.
|
