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Drivers for sustainability (previously - THE IMPLEMENTATION AND ADVANTAGES OF CARBON TRADING IN THE CONCRETE INDUSTRY)

Drivers for sustainability (previously - THE IMPLEMENTATION AND ADVANTAGES OF CARBON TRADING IN THE CONCRETE INDUSTRY). John Harrison B.Sc. B.Ec. FCPA. TecEco Managing Director. sustainability of buildings. Tremendous Potential for sustainability in building and construction.

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Drivers for sustainability (previously - THE IMPLEMENTATION AND ADVANTAGES OF CARBON TRADING IN THE CONCRETE INDUSTRY)

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  1. Drivers for sustainability(previously - THE IMPLEMENTATION AND ADVANTAGES OF CARBON TRADING IN THE CONCRETE INDUSTRY) John Harrison B.Sc. B.Ec. FCPA. TecEco Managing Director

  2. sustainability of buildings • Tremendous Potential for sustainability in building and construction. • Estimates as high as 40% of total emissions (ResearchandMarkets) • Lifetime energies • As high 90+% of total energies (Ken Slattery in Friday’s Forum Session. Most calculations I have seen more like 70+%) • Initial • Embodied energies of materials • Embodied emissions of materials • also important esp. for concrete • Properties in use of materials • Properties like thermal capacity, conductance, opacity etc allow designers to deliver lower lifetime energies.

  3. CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR INDUSTRY • Long supply and waste chains • Many different players. • Make it difficult to introduce carbon trading. • All the decisions that matter are made at the design stage. In relation to sustainability it is time to stop talking about it and get on with it by removing the brakes and enabling the drivers.

  4. THE DESIGN ROOM Rewards:Green points, higher prices etc. Constraints: Dollars, Design and Administrative or Legal Information: The embodied energy and emissions of materials and their performance in structures Data & more data The DesignRoom Permissions: Engineering standards, building codes & guidelines, approval systems.

  5. LCA at design stage is key – but complex Source: European methodology for the evaluation of Environmental impact of buildings at www.cenerg.ensmp.fr/.../cycle/html/11.html

  6. LCA’s • LCA’s can determine sustainability • Carbon trading is the most obvious potential driver. • Our permissions and rewards systems the most obvious brakes. • Determining offsets or credits using LCA’s will require the generation of much more numbers • Why not modify our permissions and rewards systems to provide these numbers and allow for innovation to improve them?

  7. Permissions • Currently standards provide an “umbrella” of safety for engineers and designers and are generally very prescriptive. • It is time to bite the bullet on sustainability and evolve permissions (mainly standards and building approvals) to performance criteria to: • Provide much more data for LCA analysis. • Enumerate values for rewards such as green points and carbon offsets of credits. • Allow for innovation. For this to occur they must become much less prescription based and specify properties such as strength (compressive, shear, flexural etc.), durability embodied energy, young’s modulus etc. in numbers

  8. Sustainability Lower embodied energy and emissionsReduced lifetime energies Objectives LCA Tools Rewards Permissions Engineering standards,building codes & guidelines,approval systems Green points, carbon offsets, higher prices etc.

  9. Sustainability improvements concrete

  10. Sustainability improvements concrete

  11. Sustainability improvements concrete

  12. What a new permission (e.g. a standard) may look like Concrete This standard was prepared by John Harrison yada yada Concrete shall be specified by qualified civil engineers or concrete technologists as any combination of characteristics such as the following and it is up to the supplier to demonstrate compliance. Strength: Compressive, shear, flexural etc. (Refs). Durability: Internal pH and Eh conditions. Permeability at 3 months,1 2 and 5 years. Various tests - chloride resistance test, sulfate resistance, water penetration etc. (Refs). Density (Refs) Embodied energy and emissions (Refs). Thermal capacity (Refs). Conductance (Refs). Colour (Refs including samples). Exterior texture (Refs including samples) Safety for the public can be assured by audit (a permission) at the building approvals stage

  13. What a reward may look like • Materials like Concrete • Concrete with embodied energy of less than XXX (points) • Material with embodied emissions of less than YYY (points) • Building performance • Building with have lifetime energies of less than ZZZ per cubic metre of space provided (points) The current Mat 5-e draft put out by the Australian Green Building Council is a mockery of common sense. It is for example common practice to add cement to compensate for recycled aggregate and fly ash additions

  14. conclusions • Time we bit the bullet. • Tools have to be provided that define objective numbers • In relation to calls for sustainability to be considered in design standards. • For carbon credits or offsets. • We can profit from carbon trading as there are significant improvements that can be made over BAU • For other green permissions and rewards • Restrictive permissions such as prescriptive standards and building approvals deny innovation and are a barrier to profitability. • Badly targeted rewards like Mat-5 defy common sense!

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