Sustainability Series 2023
The Concrete Centre is pleased to announce that the Sustainability Series is back for 2023, building on the success and feedback from previous years.
The series' events and resources are free to attend and download, and intended to assist construction professionals and students from across the design and construction community make informed decisions to reduce the whole life carbon of projects using concrete.
Week 1: Launch - Collective Action: Delivering sustainable concrete
The Concrete Centre’s Sustainability Series is a six-week programme that provides the latest guidance, progress updates and discussions across six themes. The Series was officially launched with a networking event, held at the Royal College of Pathologists HQ, London on 11 September.
The event provided the latest guidance on benchmarking low carbon concrete and information on the progress to decarbonise UK cement and concrete. The new UK Concrete Sustainable Construction Strategy was also previewed, including the role the concrete supply chain can have in delivering positive social outcomes.
Information on all of the above topics can be found linked on this page.
Catch up on-demand: A presentation given on the evening has now been recorded as an on-demand resource. Decarbonising UK Cement and Concrete webinar is available here.
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This week of the Sustainability Series was dedicated to precast concrete and MMC (Modern Methods of Construction) and it provided the opportunity to consolidate and share some of the work that the UK precast concrete manufacturers have been doing to maintain, improve, and report their sustainability credentials.
Featured in the live webinar event in Week 2 of the series was the new University of York campus student accommodation where collaboration with manufacturers helped to simplify construction using a precast concrete crosswall system.
Catch up on-demand: This event is now available in our catch up on-demand library, please also visit our resources page for more useful infomation.
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Week 3 of the Sustainability Series focused on how to identify, specify and use low carbon concretes. It brought together resources from The Concrete Centre, and others, on topics such as updates to the BS 8500 standard; information on supplementary cementitious materials; and benchmarking projects to establish what is low carbon concrete. Exemplar projects that demonstrate the many benefits of low carbon concrete were also presented.
The live webinar focused on the imminent revision to BS 8500 which includes the introduction of lower carbon ternary (or multi-component) cements, CEM II/C-M and CEM VI. The webinar discussed the main revisions to the standard and how the method of specification has changed to facilitate the wider range of lower carbon concretes that will be available.
Catch up on-demand: This event is now available in our catch up on-demand library, please also visit our resources page for more useful infomation.
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The majority of new housing in the UK is constructed using masonry. Week 4 of the Sustainability Series provided guidance and resources to explore the ways in which design and specification is evolving to help new housing meet current regulations and carbon targets.
The webinar 'Detailing Thermal Performance' provided essential guidance for the understanding, assessment and detailing of thermal junctions in the construction of masonry homes to meet current Part L requirements and in preparation for The Future Homes Standard.
Catch up on-demand: This event is now available in our catch up on-demand library, please also visit our resources page for more useful infomation.
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Keeping resources in use for as long as possible is at the core of circular economy thinking, and there are a growing number of developments benefiting from the inherent durability of concrete frames through their reuse, saving embodied carbon in the process. Week 5 of the Sustainability Series gathered together resources and guidance which shows how concrete can be used to its best advantage for current and future uses.
The webinar for this week showcased projects illustrating ways in which concrete elements can be re-used in their entirety, presented by members of the manufacturing and design teams.
Catch up on-demand: This event is now available in our catch up on-demand library, please also visit our resources page for more useful infomation.
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The revision to the UK Concrete Industry Sustainable Construction Strategy sets a new vision for the sector aligned with new targets, priorities and sustainability considerations that have emerged and evolved since the development of the original strategy some 15 years ago.
At the heart of the new strategy is collaboration across the value chain to tackle the climate change and biodiversity emergency while creating a safe and regenerative built environment. The webinar for this week included an overview of the refreshed industry strategy and presentations related to a biodiversity and social outcomes focus.
Catch up on-demand: This event is now available in our catch up on-demand library, please also visit our resources page for more useful infomation.