Structural Engineers' Climate Action

The six most important things all professional structural engineers should do now. Suggestions from Dr Mike Cook, March 2020:

1. Get informed – as a professional engineer you are obliged to develop your skills continuously.
2. Design low carbon - track and reduce embodied carbon; rethink the materials you specify.
3. Design lean - reduce the quantity of material; avoid over design.
4. Design recycled – specify recycled materials and design to allow future re-use.
5. Work with your client - influence your brief, develop a sustainability plan, seek opportunities to reduce new-build and maximise retention, adaption and extension of existing buildings
6. Get active locally - work with other professionals to help each other, compare progress and learn.

[edit] Get better informed about the climate emergency

• Understand the causes and consequences of carbon emissions for life on the planet.
• Recognise how structural engineering decisions have a direct impact on emissions and the harm they do.
• Understand how you, as a structural engineer, can reduce your professional carbon footprint TODAY.
• Look for information from organisations such as IPCC, CCC, UKGBC, IStructE, LETI and UK FIRES.
• Re-read the Structural Engineering Climate Emergency Declaration (https://www.structuralengineersdeclare.com/) and note the key commitments made.
• Make sure your firm has declared and that everyone knows what this means for them.

[edit] Design low-carbon - reduce embodied carbon through low-carbon design

• Understand where construction activities create carbon emissions through material production, manufacturing and site activities.
• Understand how to measure carbon embodied in a structural design.
• Understand how to reduce embodied carbon through the material choices you make and the way you specify them.
• Select structural materials in ways that you know will reduce embodied carbon.
• Make controlling carbon in your design as important as controlling costs and ensuring safety.
• Make low-carbon important to your clients, team and supply chain.
• Information sources: LETI Embodied Carbon Primer; IStructE Principles for Assessing Embodied Carbon (being published soon).

[edit] Design lean - reduce material use specified in your design

• Design for the least material use whilst retaining safety and buildability.
• Make sure all components are designed for the least material use and are 100% utilised.
• Make sure design loads are fully appraised for the particular building context and use – do not design for unnecessarily high loads “just in case”.
• Consider future strengthening processes as a viable way to future-proof instead of over-design.
• Make sure the client understands that benefits of lean design in terms of cost and carbon.

[edit] Design recycled - reduce material waste and increase the re-use of materials in your designs

• Apply cyclical practices for materials and design and build these into the project team's way of working.
• Seek to use recycled materials to their full in your material specifications and in the choice of components.
• Seek methods of fabrication and construction that allow easy deconstruction and re-use of materials at the end of life.

[edit] Help your client - question your brief and take you client with you

• Provide a structural sustainability report for your project that tracks sustainability targets agreed at the outset and targets achieved on the completion of the project.
• Inform your client about the changes in market expectations that will raise the value of low-carbon ethical construction and reduce the longer-term value of high-carbon construction.
• Seek out opportunities to retain and restore buildings instead of demolishing and replacing them.
• Understand how a development project could become an asset to the planet and regenerative (see https://living-future.org/lbc/).

[edit] Be an active professional engineer

• Engage with the Institution.
• Share your successes and failures.
• Set up local professional groups to exchange information.
• Lobby your local MP for changes in taxation, planning and legislation.
• If you haven’t yet done so, declare a Climate Emergency (https://www.structuralengineersdeclare.com/)

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki

• Architects Declare.
• A zero-carbon UK by 2050?
• Carbon footprint.
• Carbon negative.
• Carbon neutral.
• Climate Change Act.
• Climate Emergency Design Guide: How new buildings can meet UK climate change targets.
• Climate emergency.
• Low or zero carbon technologies.
• Nearly zero-energy building.
• Net zero carbon 2050.
• Net zero carbon building.
• What we need for the journey to net-zero carbon emissions.

Comments

Consider PAS 20280:2016 Carbon Management in Infrastructure. Reduce carbon, reduce cost.

See https://www.carbontrust.com/what-we-do/assurance-and-certification/pas-2080-carbon-management-in-infrastructure