But this moment also gives you an opportunity to make small changes to the way your systems operate; to make meaningful improvements to the efficiency of systems, control your energy bills and limit the impact of increased ventilation on the environment.105 Sumner Street - designed for development by Landsec - will be the first major building completed using our Platform Design for Manufacture and Assembly (P-DfMA) approach from building design to delivery.. P-DfMA is a versatile and customisable construction system for commercial, residential and other building types.. P-DfMA consists of common parts, all made from readily available materials, which have been designed to go together in rehearsed ways.
As trees age, they absorb less carbon dioxide, so it’s beneficial to replace them.This is known as a sustainably managed forest.. Our response is to:.
- Recommend that biogenic carbon capture is only accounted for if the timber has a responsible sourcing certificate, a clear circular strategy, and a clear commitment to facilitate reuse.. - Conduct a comprehensive circularity plan that includes solutions for deconstruction and a plan for reuse, upcycle and recycle..The impact of the timber industry on the natural environment.To meet increased demand for engineered timber, we need to carefully consider land availability and the impact on ecosystems..
While sustainable forest management (FSC or PEFC) is the best tool available to ensure a reasonable exploitation of timber, these certifications aren’t perfect.Natural forests are complex biodiverse ecosystems that capture carbon, not just in trees but also within soil.
A ‘tree plantation’ unlike a forest, may not enhance biodiversity and may have a reduced capacity to store carbon in the soil.. One major risk related to carbon accounting and forest management is that Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) may not adequately account for the carbon released from decaying root net and from the soil when cutting trees.
This can be largely underestimated for most timber products.. We must also acknowledge that sustainable foresting cannot produce enough timber to respond to global construction needs.It also seems likely that within the grand scheme of things on the horizon, the digital work will take longer than the physical aspects, and we should be conscious of that.. Miranda Sharp reminds us that digitising planning and the wider built environment won’t be easy to do.
Some of the necessary work will be boring, and it will be a grind to make the data interoperable and set the transaction mechanisms.Aligning standards, cleaning up data and creating transformation will all take a long time.
The industry wants a silver bullet, it wants to skip to the end, but there’s some fairly heavy lifting to be done first.Sharp says we need to get better about taking the quick wins.