Multi-disciplinary consultancy Pick Everard has developed new guidance to help project teams identify opportunities to retain, reuse and specify materials more effectively.
Structured around the RIBA Plan of Work (but equally applicable for infrastructure and other assets), Pick Everard’s new Material Playbook sets out the actions project teams can take at each stage to reduce waste, lower embodied carbon and keep materials in use for longer – all with the goal of driving whole life value.
Tim Danson, director of sustainability and energy at Pick Everard, said: “One of the biggest challenges for sustainable material management is that historically, responsibility fell between different disciplines, teams and stages of a project.
“This Playbook provides a practical, step-by-step framework to help designers, engineers and specifiers make better and more collaborative decisions, make those decisions earlier in the project lifecycle, and thereby afford the greatest opportunity to reduce a project’s environmental footprint.
“Too often, the default response is to specify new materials because that’s what we’ve always done. We want clients and project teams to deeply and robustly challenge that approach by first asking whether materials, technologies and other physical assets can be retained, reused or replaced with a lower-impact alternative that delivers the same performance. Sanitaryware, furniture, flooring, doors and glazing are examples that represent just the tip of the potential iceberg.”
The Playbook identifies practical, simple steps that can be taken right from the outset of a project being commissioned, from auditing existing buildings and understanding the value of materials already in place, through to assessing reuse opportunities and selecting lower-impact products.
Supporting the guidance is Pick Everard’s in-house Materials Catalogue, a centralised library of sustainable materials and products that provides access to performance, cost, quantity and embodied carbon information.
The Catalogue is used as part of planning and design optioneering workshops, enabling project teams to compare material choices and identify solutions that meet technical, commercial and environmental requirements.
The release of the Material Playbook comes after Pick Everard played a key role in the development of new guidance from the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals (ISEP).
ISEP’s guidance, Material Pathway Auditing in the Built Environment, calls on the industry to act now to implement best practice and fulfil its role in a circular and net zero economy.
Globally, over 100 billion tonnes of resources are consumed each year. And the proportion of that volume that is subject to some level of circular economy action is - despite our understanding of the impacts - getting worse.
The carbon footprint of the global construction industry is therefore expected to double by 2050 if short-term approaches to building design and project delivery continue; this is a model that is also expected to play out in the UK, if we do not see rapid and systemic change.
Tim added: "The scale of the challenge means we need to rethink how we approach materials across the built environment.
"There is a perception that using reused materials is expensive or difficult, but the reality is that shifts in culture, better data, established reuse marketplaces, and new approaches to procurement have made many solutions accessible and viable today.
"By making responsible material decisions now, we can reduce carbon, create efficiencies and deliver projects that leave a positive and lasting legacy. The question every project team should be asking now is not just ‘what materials do we need?’ but ‘what materials already exist and how can we make the best use of them over the full life of our schemes?’"
To download the Material Playbook, visit https://www.pickeverard.co.uk/events/material-playbook
