Welcome
Introduction
The Sustainable Public Buildings project is a project funded by Advantage West Midlands and managed by Encraft Ltd. It explicitly encourages economic development of the construction industry in the West Midlands and implicitly addresses the environmental and social aspects of sustainability.
What are the objectives?
- To encourage the take up of sustainable methods in the design of new public buildings.
- To develop a cluster of world class manufacturing and service enterprises based on sustainable building technologies.
- To help engineering and similar companies in declining sectors to diversify into the sustainable construction industry.
Who will benefit?
Local authorities
Authorities who engage with Encraft and partners in the pre-design stage of building projects (typically £5-50 million), for which they are the client, receive help in identifying and assessing sustainable options in the context of a new-building design. Benefits include wider stakeholder participation and the examination of options beyond those normally considered.
SMEs and others in the building-industry supply chains, or who would like to enter such chains.
Engineering companies with high-level transferable skills could be harnessed to produce globally-competitive products for sustainable buildings and reduce current levels of imports. Benefits are direct involvement with live projects, access to client thinking at a time of great change and access to relevant expertise.
Architects and other professionals
Buildings are now assessed according to their energy performance as well as construction standards. This means more teamwork and at an earlier stage in a building design than has been traditional. The project provides insights into the organisational changes that this implies and provides examples of the tools now available to assess designs.
The public
The delivery of sustainable buildings will reduce life-cycle costs, soften the future tax burden and reduce the harmful emissions which plaque the planet. It is already apparent that new buildings such as schools have a significant influence on social and economic sustainability. A major benefit is therefore consultation with a wide range of stakeholders including local communities.
Why public-sector involvement?
The public sector is well-placed to set an example in mitigating the effects of climate change, reducing harmful emissions and operating sustainably by:
- constructing sustainable buildings, and
- encouraging companies to develop skills and methods to exploit the economic opportunities which attend them
because:
- In the financial year 2004/2005 local authorities in the West Midlands spent over £1 billion on construction, conversion and renovation.
- Public-sector procurement in the UK is estimated to be over £25 billion per year.
- Public-sector buildings currently account for 30% of CO2 emissions.
How does the project exploit this?
The SPB project exploits the above opportunity by helping public-sector organisations to achieve sustainable-building design and operation by engaging with eight specific building projects across the West Midlands. The approach is to:
- Engage with the client for the proposed building project at the pre-design stage.
- Provide the additional resource required to evaluate sustainable options more thoroughly than otherwise.
- Examine life-cycle costs as well as initial capital spend.
- Bring stakeholders together to examine and discuss options ahead of commitment to a final design.
- Help formulate the business case for the most appropriate sustainable option.
And the business benefits?
Wherever practical, contractors and local suppliers are invited to the stakeholder workshops at which sustainable methods are evaluated. In addition SMEs are invited to engage with Encraft, its partners and other specialists to learn more of the opportunities and methods needed for sustainable construction.
The strength of the approach lies in the engagement of SMEs with real-life projects alongside specialists. This means that:
- All engagement has a potential influence on outcomes which affect the public and West Midlands economy for years ahead.
- All projects raise issues of up-to-date significance to businesses and the public.
- There are serious business opportunities for suppliers because the individual SPB projects are real and worth many millions.
- There are opportunities for SMEs to obtain future business, learn and be competitive.
We are able to offer West Midlands based SMEs the following services:
- Half or one-day workshops to learn about sustainability issues in the construction industry.
- Introductions to university researchers.
- Five days assistance to SMEs based in objective 2 areas for approved projects.
