Z-squared: potential for reducing the environmental impact of construction materials

About the report

This report outlines the potential for reducing the environmental impact of construction materials. The report uses the Z-squared concept community as a basis.

The report is one of ten in our Z-squared research report series.

Published January 2005
Pages 23

Download report PDF

........................................................................................................
BioRegional is a registered charity – if you would like to make a donation for this report please visit www.justgiving.com to do so securely on-line – suggested donation £4.00.  

Your support will help us to continue developing vital solutions for sustainable living.

Introduction

According to the WWF Living Planet Report 2004, the eco-footprint of the average UK resident is 5.4ha. Our fair share of the earth’s biocapacity is only 1.8ha. If everyone on the planet consumed as much as the average person in the UK we’d need three planets to support us.

Working with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and WWF, BioRegional carried out a study of the UK eco-footprint breakdown which showed 19% of the UK’s eco-footprint is taken up by the embodied environmental impact of built infrastructure. This includes homes, offices, factories, roads, airports, railways, water treatment works, power stations, retail complexes etc. Every year materials are used to construct these facilities and it is the embodied environmental impacts of these materials – raw material extraction, processing, manufacture, haulage, packaging – that make up this section of our collective eco-footprint.

BioRegional are striving to find practical ways to reduce all sectors of the average UK resident's eco-footprint in order to meet the very difficult challenge of One Planet Living. They therefore felt that an overall study of the potential for reduced impact in this infrastructure category would be helpful. In particular, BioRegional are working on proposals for a 2,000 home mixed use development in the Thames Gateway. This project aims to demonstrate One Planet Living principles and also to achieve the “Z-squared” status of zero fossil energy and zero waste.

SEI have produced two reports from which this study has built on, Footprint North West and Taking Stock – an eco-footprint study of the South East. Both these documents report in detail on the resource flow and eco-footprint of that region and they make recommendations on how to reduce the eco-footprint by 75%. This report builds on the SEI work for the Construction sector and reports more specifically on how realistic those reductions are and how to achieve them.

A 75% reduction would mean reducing the eco-footprint of the construction industry from 61.5 million ha to 15.4 million ha. Each of the report sections looks at an aspect of the construction industry and suggests a “potential impact reduction” (PIR). The report ends by bringing together all the PIR’s to make a total suggested impact reduction that is believed to be realistic and achievable.

Download report PDF
........................................................................................................
BioRegional is a registered charity – if you would like to make a donation for this report please visit www.justgiving.com to do so securely on-line – suggested donation £4.00.  

Your support will help us to continue developing vital solutions for sustainable living.