Environmental Sustainability in the Construction Sector - Research Paper Example

Environmental Sustainability in the Construction Sector Table of Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 3 Challenges and Initiatives 4 Possible Recommendations to Mitigate Challenges and Capitalizing on Opportunities 8 Conclusion 12 References 14 Introduction UK can be considered as one of the developed economies in this world. Growth of several industries is one of the major reasons behind the economic growth of United Kingdom. Global construction industry is growing at a rapid growth rate. It has been expected that this particular industry will achieve most significant growth rate among all the industries within next ten years. The government of United Kingdom is trying to support each and every player within the construction industry to maintain a significant and constant growth rate as this industry is playing a major role in the growth of the economy of UK. Recent financial crisis and global economic recession affected the economic environment of United Kingdom. It is true that high carbon emission and havoc use of natural resources in the construction industry is affecting the environmental balance in UK. It is true that the organizations within the construction industry in UK face several types of businesses threats and challenges. On the other hand, there are several business opportunities that are influencing the organizations within construction industry to capitalize on these. This essay will discuss about several aspects of environmental sustainability in the UK construction sector. In order to do so, the study will consider how the challenges present several important business opportunities. In addition to this, this essay will recommend some pathways for the main contractors or subcontractors to overcome the challenges and barriers in order to meet the developed business objectives. Discussion Each and every business organization within several industries used to face different types of challenges and issues. High carbon emission and rapid climate change have become major challenges for the construction firms in the United Kingdom. Therefore, it can be stated that the changes in the UK economy is developing new business opportunities for the construction companies in United Kingdom. It is true that the evolution to a low carbon economy generally presents the construction industry of United Kingdom an effective business opportunity growth. Environmental sustainability has become one of the serious concerns for the government of United Kingdom. UK government is trying to influence the organizations within the construction industry to follow developed environmental sustainability policies and legislations. On the other hand, the government itself is trying to understand the significance of the environmental sustainability. It has been mentioned earlier that the construction industry is achieving a significant growth rate in the post recession era. This constant and sustainable growth rate is motivating the government to influence the industries to follow the developed policies. In addition to this, the government is seriously eyeing on the construction industry as it is helping the entire economy to attain a significant growth rate. Challenges and Initiatives Green business opportunity has become one of the major concerns for the companies within the UK construction company. It has been expected that the future UK co0nstruction market will significantly capitalize the business opportunities which will be developed due to the emergence of low carbon business operation strategies and activities. In addition to this, it has been forecasted that the global green and sustainable construction industry will achieve an annual growth rate of 22.8% in next ten years (HM Government, 2013, p.34). However, it is important for both the government and the organizations within the industry to identify the environmental and business operation challenges in order to attain the forecasted growth rate. It is known to all that the business operation of the companies within the construction industry always requires significant amount of natural energy resources, such as water and fossil fuel. It is quite important for the organizations to ensure sufficient energy resources in order to enhance effective business operation activities. High consumption of fossil fuel has several negative impacts on society. High carbon and green house gas emission are the two critical and serious consequences of havoc consumption of fossil fuel. It is true that global climate change and global warming are two major issues that are affecting the environmental sustainability in UK. It has discussed earlier that the business operation activities associated with the construction industry need huge energy resources in the form of fossil fuel or water. Huge consumption of natural water can hamper both environmental and ecological balance. Drought and flood are the major consequences of huge extraction and consumption of natural water and several valuable natural resources. On the other hand, the organizations within the construction industry also use fossil fuel as natural resources. High consumption of fossil fuel increases the possibility of carbon emission level that may cause rapid climate change and global warming. Construction industry can be considered as a sensitive industry. It is important for the management of the organizations within the construction industry to control each and every business operation process as inadequate business process can hamper the environmental sustainability. Starting from resource allocation to waste management, each and every business operation process requires effective control to mitigate the possible environmental issues and challenges. Therefore, it is highly important to scrutinize all the processes with effective monitoring and high control. Waste management also has become major concern for the management of the construction companies as well as the government of United Kingdom. Frequent and high volume waste disposals without appropriate recycling process can cause air pollution that can affect the overall environmental sustainability. Therefore, it is highly important for both the government and the players within the industry to act collaboratively. Development of green business strategies and activities has become major challenge for the government as well as the construction companies in UK. On the other hand, these challenges are developing several key business opportunities for these organizations. Most importantly, government and the organizations within the UK construction industry are collaboratively trying to capitalize on the green business opportunities in order to maintain the environmental sustainability. Recently UK government has introduced Zero Carbon Policy in order to overcome the effect of havoc use of fossil fuels and natural resources. (Zerocarbon, 2014, p.1) The government of United Kingdom has committed to green agenda and sustainable growth. Therefore, the regulatory bodies and government has developed several legal policies, standards and regulatory binding targets in order to 9mitigate the risks that are associated with the business environment. The Climate Change Act that was developed in the year 2008 can be considered as highly important from this point of view. According to this CCA 2008, the business organizations as well as the government are responsible to reduce the amount of carbon emission by 80 percent within the baseline of 2050 from the level of the year 1990. However, government initiated the Zero Carbon building or construction policy in order to meet the CCA target quite comprehensively and successfully. In addition to this, government of United Kingdom took the responsibility to overcome other critical issues, such as fuel poverty and energy security. Zero Carbon Policy can be considered as a required and positive step initiated by the government and several regulatory bodies of the United Kingdom. According to this Zero Carbon Policy, each and every new home from the year 2016 should mitigate the risk and possibility of high energy consumption. However, the government of United Kingdom needs to do more things to achieve the CCA target. Emission resulting from the plug-in appliances and cooking are also need to be included in the Zero Carbon Policy as the emission from these mentioned utilizations is increasing quite heavily. This particular policy is effectively aligned with the developed European Policy. According to this policy, all the new building should maintain zero carbon policy in order to become zero carbon building from the year 2020. It is highly important that new domestic and non-domestic buildings need to be designed and developed as sustainable as possible. Target of Zero Carbon Standards cannot be achieved if the government and the contractors do not consider the requirements and policies. The building and construction environment generally accounts for almost 50 percent of use of the natural resources. In this utilization, the builders or the contractors generally use 40 percent of energy resources, 20 percent of water and it causes serious carbon and green house gas emission (UKBC, 2014, p.1). It has been discussed earlier that the government of United Kingdom is trying to influence the organizations and contractors within the construction company. Therefore, the management of these organizations are trying to follow the developed policies and regulations. New schools, commercial buildings, residential buildings and other non-domestic buildings are also considered under this zero carbon policy. Builders, owners and government are the major external and internal stakeholders of this building. Each and every stakeholder associated with this industry is trying to maintain zero carbon standards to ensure environmental sustainability within the UK construction sector. According to the statement of government years between 2016 and 2025 is quite important and vital for both the government and the contractors. All the major contractors and sub-contractors are trying to follow the standards to gain the support from the important and valuable external stakeholders. In addition to this, both the government and builders are trying to ensure transparent and conflict free conversation in order to reduce the communication and performance gap. Possible Recommendations to Mitigate Challenges and Capitalizing on Opportunities It is clear from above discussions and provided facts that the UK construction industry is facing challenges like high carbon emission due to the havoc consumption of energy resources and natural resources, such as water and other materials. In addition to this, issues regarding waste management are also becoming major concerns for the government and construction organizations in United Kingdom. These issues have several positive business opportunities that need to be capitalized by the organizations in order to enhance green construction business environment and environmental sustainability. First of all, it is essential for the organizations in the UK construction industry to reduce the consumption of wastages and materials. The concept of recycling of materials and wastages need to be incorporated by the major and sub contractors in order to maintain the environmental sustainability and green growth of the construction industry. The government of United Kingdom can motivate the contractors or the business players within the construction industry to adopt and implement the concept of advanced technology utilization in the business operation process in order to recycle the sourced and used water. It will help the organizations to bring efficiency in the water recycling process. Effective water recycling can help the organization as well as the community to build green constructions as it can minimizes the amount of sourcing of water from natural reservoirs or resources. Ultimately, it can help to maintain environmental sustainability as it will reduce the possibility of flood, drought and no rainfall. Zero solid waste can be considered as an important aspect under the waste management process that needs to be considered by the organizations within the UK construction industry. In addition to this, government should also consider this issue during the zero carbon policy development process. This strategy will also help the organizations to limit the extraction of materials and damping of wastages. Effective recycling process of wastages can help the organizations as well as entire mankind. Ultimately it will help the organizations as well as the government of United Kingdom to maintain environmental sustainability. Energy efficiency is another effective consideration that can help the organizations within the UK construction industry to maintain the environmental sustainability. The organizations can use green energy resources in order to limit the consumption of energy that is required to run the business operation activities. In addition to this, it is highly important for the main or sub-contractors to ensure green and emission free home applications during the development of homes or schools or buildings as it can help entire community to reduce the consumption level of the energy resources. In addition to this, the management of organization can adopt and implement some unique ideas and strategies in order to source energy through waste materials or recycled water. This aspect will help the organizations in both ways. First of all, it can help to reduce overall business operation cost. Secondly, it can help the organization to maintain ecological balance and environmental sustainability. On the other hand, it can help the government to maintain sustainable economic and social growth of the country. Implementation of resource efficiency process is important for the construction companies and the contractors in order to ensure environmental sustainability. A six step resource efficiency model can be considered as most structured and systematic approach that can help the organizations to maintain environmental sustainability in the project and corporate levels. The flexibility of this six step approach can help the organizations to maintain zero carbon standards and meet the developed CCA target. Six steps in this approach are commit, review, plan, implement, measure and report. (Wrap, 2014, p.1) Commit is the first step in the six step resource efficiency approach. According to this approach, the organizations within the construction industry have to assemble the business challenges as well as several opportunities through these challenges. It can help the organization to proceed to the next level of the implementation of action plan. The major action would be to secure the board level commitment in order to increase resource efficiency as it will help to follow the policies and enhance effective corporate priority. This commitment needs to be communicated internally in order to raise a clear mandate among the employees of all departments within the organizations. Review of performance through the implementation of action plan can be considered as the second step in this six-step resource efficiency approach or model. Effective review of performance can help the construction companies to set a benchmark against several smaller organizations. In addition to this, it can help the organizations to maintain effective environmental sustainability. Development of effective and fruitful plan is the third step in the six-step approach. Defining of objectives, development and appropriate action plans and identification of improvement actions can be considered as the major actions in this step. The developed objective in this stage should be SMART objectives. It will help the organizations to support existing corporate priorities. Fourth step of this action plan is implementation. Effective implementation of action plans can help the organizations to improve efficiency. The organizations need to make sure that this implementation should be taken place in both project level and corporate level. Measure is the fifth step in this six-step resource efficiency process. In this step also, the organizations within the construction industry has to consider two levels, such as corporate level and project level. In terms of corporate plan, the organizations need to track the improvement and progress of overall implementation actions. On the other hand, the organizations should try to measure the project performance at the project level that generally contributes to the developed smart objectives. Report is the sixth and final step of this six-step resource efficiency approach. The organizations within the construction industry in UK should try to source and gather information and evidence of the performance and actions. In addition to this, the management should try to report on annual basis regarding the progress of the organization towards the developed SMART objective. Last but not the least; the management of these organizations should try to capitalize on the public relation opportunities. It can help the organizations to meet the developed target of CCA, zero carbon standard and green emission. Conclusion It is clear from above discussion that the construction industry plays an important role in the economic development of United Kingdom. Recently, the government of UK is significantly considering the growth of this industry after the serious impact of global recession and European financial crisis on the economic growth of United Kingdom. The government is influencing the organizations, clients and other stakeholders in this UK construction industry to follow the developed environmental and green emission legislations and policies. On the other hand, the organizations within the UK construction industry are also trying to maintain the green emission in the business operation activities to maintain environmental sustainability and social growth. However, enormous use of several natural energy resources and poor waste management processes affect the ecological balance and environmental sustainability. Therefore, it is important for the organizations within the UK construction industry to follow each and every developed green business environmental policies to maintain zero carbon standards. It is true that each and every business operation activity in a construction company requires huge amount of energy resources. As the government of UK has introduced zero carbon and green emission policy, therefore it is highly essential for the contractors to adopt effective and sustainable business operation processes in order to ensure low carbon emission and environmental sustainability. The government of United Kingdom is trying to influence the organizations to capitalize on the green emission business operation opportunities that are actually developed from the environmental and legal challenges that are associated with the business operation activities. On the other hand, it is highly important for the organizations to consider the concept of water recycling and zero solid waste in the business operation process in order to enhance environmental sustainability. It is true that the contractors and the organizations within the UK construction company are trying to follow the developed policies in order to meet the developed objective of zero carbon standard and green emission. It is clear from their activities and developed new constructions. The contractors are building new residential homes, domestic houses, non-domestic buildings, schools and other commercial building as per the developed policies and legal framework in order to gain support from government and other valuable stakeholders. On the other hand, government is also supporting these main or subcontractors to adopt and implement advanced technologies and other unique strategies in the business operation processes in order to enhance both environmental sustainability and positive economic growth rate. However, it is important for the organizations as well as the contractors to consider the six-step resource efficiency approach to limit the sourcing of natural resources as it will help the organizations to meet the developed CCA and green emission strategy and objective. These are the strategies that can help the organizations to mitigate the external challenges and maintain environmental sustainability. References HM Government., 2013. Industrial Strategy: Government and Industry in Partnership Construction 2025. [PDF]. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/210099/bis-13-955-construction-2025-industrial-strategy.pdf. [Accessed on March 17, 2014]. UKBC., 2014. New Build. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ukgbc.org/content/new-build. [Accessed on March 17, 2014]. Wrap., 2014. Implementing resource efficiency in construction. [Online]. Available at: http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/implementing-resource-efficiency-construction. [Accessed on March 17, 2014]. Zerocarbon., 2014. Zero Carbon Policy. [Online]. Available at: http://www.zerocarbonhub.org/zero-carbon-policy/zero-carbon-policy. [Accessed on March 17, 2014]. Read More