Sustainability

Balfour Beatty Group's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rose last year, official documents have revealed. The business, a major subsidiary of the UK's largest contractor, reported an 18 per cent rise in its scope 1 and 2 emissions. This figure, calculated using the standard market-based approach, means the entity was responsible…

Insurance firm Aviva has announced that it is expanding its “underwriting appetite” to include engineered timber in commercial developments. There is growing interest in the use of timber to increase buildings’ sustainability and meet net-zero targets. But Aviva admitted earlier this month that insurers’ appetite for risk had not kept…

The construction industry is on track for less than half of its government-backed “net-zero priorities”, according to the Construction Leadership Council (CLC). The CLC has published its sixth progress update to its CO2nstruct Zero Performance Framework, which was launched at COP26 in November 2021 as a universal tool to collect…

The City of London Corporation is calling for urgent action and investment to meet “growing demand” for workers with the skills needed to deliver sustainable buildings. The Skills for Sustainable Skyline Taskforce report, released by the organisation on 9 August, said one of the biggest barriers to tackling the built…

Willmott Dixon will reuse 100 tonnes of 1930s steel salvaged from the former House of Fraser on London’s Oxford Street for an office retrofit near Tower Bridge. Developer FORE Partnership is removing the steel beams from the former department store, claiming it is the first time pre-Second World War steel…

The heads of two construction trade bodies have hit out after the High Court ruled that the Mayor of London’s planned expansion of the capital’s ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) was lawful. Following the ruling last Thursday, the expansion of ULEZ into all London boroughs will go ahead as planned on…

National Highways is aiming to make one of the UK’s largest-ever purchases of low-carbon hydrogen, to power construction machinery on the site of the planned Lower Thames Crossing (LTC). It said that the £50m purchase of the production, delivery and storage of hydrogen – revealed in a tender notice yesterday (Tuesday)…

The first of more than sixty 240-metre-deep geothermal boreholes has been completed on the Salisbury Square development in the City of London. According to the City of London Corporation, the Salisbury Square scheme – which has an estimated value of £596m – is the first development in the Square Mile…

Data revealing the potential pothole damage caused by electric vehicles has strengthened the case for concrete roads, according to an industry body. Analysis by the University of Leeds shows that the average electric car more than doubles the wear and tear on roads, increasing the risk of small cracks which…

Ministers must create a hard-hitting taskforce to drive construction of a zero-carbon power network and step up the fight against global warming, a key report has urged. The Climate Change Committee report says the government needs to create a high-level infrastructure delivery group to take “swift action” to boost building…