Abstract
AbstractThe construction industry is facing growing pressure to reduce carbon emissions. An important first step is to quantify emissions from construction projects enabling designs to be changed and emissions reduced. Whilst progress has been made in the development of carbon calculation tools, the uptake of these tools has been slow. This paper seeks to understand the reasons for the slow implementation of carbon calculation tools in the construction industry and provide guidance on how to overcome these challenges. We find there are specific issues that prevent tools being used such as data security and usability, but more general issues such as a lack of education or regulation also pose a challenge. Our findings suggest that despite the benefits that can come from using carbon calculation tools to reduce emissions, the use of tools on their own will be insufficient to achieve the needed carbon reduction and wider emissions‐related change. Instead, carbon calculation tools need to be looked at within and across construction organisations through training, industry‐wide standards and regulations as well as organisation‐wide requirements and collaboration. The construction industry has a reputation for being slow to react to change, but if this industry waits for regulation before taking action, then the timescales involved may be too long given the pressing need to reduce emissions now. We recommend that for carbon calculation tools to be successfully integrated, the industry must work together to achieve more immediate change.
Highlights
Climate change is ‘the greatest challenge of our time’ (Fanelli, 2014, p. 15), and to prevent global average temperature rise exceeding the 1.5C target set in the Paris Agreement (UN, 2015), a significant reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is needed
It is to that end that we aim to answer the following research questions: why has the implementation of carbon calculation tools been slow in the construction industry, and how can organisations in the construction industry improve the implementation of carbon calculation tools to reduce emissions?
The linkage of the sensitive nature of emissions data and the complex yet traditional interactions in the construction industry means that the implementation of a carbon calculation tool is insufficient to create a reduction in carbon emissions
Summary
Climate change is ‘the greatest challenge of our time’ (Fanelli, 2014, p. 15), and to prevent global average temperature rise exceeding the 1.5C target set in the Paris Agreement (UN, 2015), a significant reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is needed. One method that has recently been encouraged to enable greater change is the use of carbon calculation tools ( called carbon calculators) to allow this complex industry to identify emissions hotspots more and make required adjustments. These calculators assign a carbon emissions factor to each material used in the construction of an asset allowing the simulation of different scenarios to determine the most carbon efficient design. These tools promise to realise the famous ‘what gets measured, gets managed’ promise—often credited to Peter Drucker—by providing a baseline against which an asset's emissions performance can be evaluated
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