ProjectSight Flipbooks

5 Pivotal Step to Reduce Embodied Carbon on Your Next Building Project

Issue link: https://construction.trimble.com/en/resources/i/1522147

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 8 of 9

9 ProjectSight White Paper 5 Pivotal Steps to Reduce Embodied Carbon on Your Next Building Project Conclusion As an industry, construction has a limited time to achieve ambitious targets. However, the industry's future environment and economic success rely on the collective efforts that contractors, owners, and other stakeholders make now—in full recognition of the challenges ahead. Rather than an arduous challenge, though, construction professionals should view this as an opportunity to connect a net-zero strategy to overall digital transformation. This fundamental shift will allow efficiency and productivity advancements other industries have seen while also creating sustainable jobs and new markets for future generations to come. Already, green building has created millions of jobs and generated hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy 15 . Construction leaders should seek to continue the trend, maximizing their efforts to achieve net-zero embodied carbon. Reducing rework and waste is also a critical element and the financial incentives here are clear. According to an ENR article, rework costs can run between 2% to 20% of a project's total contract amount. If this isn't a case for change perhaps considering the environmental impacts resulting from wasted material, labor and additional transportation may be. We need to prioritize upfrontup front planning and enhanced project and stakeholder communication to reduce the inefficiencies in our industry and pave the way towards net-zero. Owners can and must set forth a roadmap to only building projects that have zero embodied carbon. For existing assets, the decision to renovate versus rebuild can have crucial impacts, on top of ensuring correct operational frameworks to maximize the life of the asset. Extending the operational life of a building or infrastructure asset through regular maintenance, repurposing, or renovating existing assets and ultimately reducing end of life emissions through recycling will allow us to become net-zero.

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

view archives of ProjectSight Flipbooks - 5 Pivotal Step to Reduce Embodied Carbon on Your Next Building Project