The industry is revisiting its policy on contractors’ commitments to reducing their in-house carbon emissions, following the shake-up caused by the creation of BuildUK, and also the end of the WRAP’s involvement in the built environment sector.
In September 2014, the members of the former UK Contractors Group signed up to the “WRAP Built Environment Commitment”, making a collective pledge to “take at least 500,000 tonnes of carbon out of our processes by 2025”. In comparison, the target for 2008-12 was 750,000 tonnes.
This overall target was based on individual contractors’ commitments, which construction firms had the freedom to set themselves. Progress towards the targets was to be monitored by WRAP, with contractors submitting their annual carbon data to WRAP’s online reporting system, called Measure.
But in March 2015, WRAP announced that it was withdrawing from all activities in the built environment sector, and its Measure portal would no longer be available.
And, following the merger between UKCG and the National Specialist Contractors Council, the WRAP pledge disappeared from view – there is currently no reference to it on the BuildUK website.
But Rob Lambe, managing director of Willmott Dixon Energy Services, and chair of the newly formed Environment Leadership Group at BuildUK, said that BuildUK is now actively reviewing how to take the Built Environment Commitment forward.
This could involve members of the NSCC signing up to the existing target, or a new target being put in place that better reflects the entire BuildUK membership.
Lambe told Construction Manager: “Because of the merger, it’s not as visible as it was previously, but it’s still a commitment and all the former UKCG members are signed up to it. We need to go back through all the policy statements that have been put in place to make sure they’re still meaningful.
“We also need to look at the activities the NSCC might have been involved in, and do an exercise to see how the statements might apply to the wider organisation.”
When Construction Manager asked if BuildUK might consider signing up to “science-based targets”, a concept gaining ground among some major companies, Lambe said that BuildUK was unlikely to sign up to “a more ambitious target”.
“The UKCG represents a significant number of organisations, and now there’s an even wider number of businesses and types, so rather than setting a more ambitious target, it’s more about setting a direction of travel everyone is comfortable with.”
Following WRAP’s withdrawal from the sector, its Measure Portal will no longer be available, and its archive of online resources for the industry will also no longer be available on its website or updated.
Lambe said: “There are ongoing discussions [with BuildUK and others] about what happens to the WRAP Measure Portal and which organisation might host it, and also whether the tool needs to be simplified or modified.”
He said that the archive of industry-related material was also likely to move to another organisation’s website.
