The panellists agreed that embedding an environmentally conscious approach into regeneration will require a grass-roots rethink of the process by which new structures are created and old ones refurbished.
Louise Townsend underlined one of the fundamental problems facing the construction sector.
In the built environment, this antiquated approach can mean that the capital and operational budgets don’t always overlap, reducing the opportunity for innovation during procurement.
This makes it very difficult to break out of the norm and identify better, more sustainable alternatives to how we build. However, roadmaps for changing the accepted process and decarbonising buildings are being investigated.
Louise gave an example of an exemplar research and development project where Morgan Sindall Construction has worked with a group of industry partners to show what can be achieved by removing barriers to smarter ways of working, with the express view of achieving a step change in low carbon buildings.
By getting more people interacting during the decision making process, including getting trades involved from as soon as RIBA stage zero instead of much later on, Morgan Sindall Construction was able to devise a low carbon, near cost neutral design that could potentially inset some of the residual carbon rather than offsetting it.
This approach would deliver a number of environmental and end user benefits, such as improving air quality and mental wellbeing levels as well as reducing flood risks.
With a city as old as Cambridge, existing stock needs to be brought up to a better standard of energy efficiency and sustainability.
Reinvesting here poses both an opportunity and a challenge for the city’s colleges.
On the one hand, it would allow them to better utilise their assets from a low carbon perspective, but this must be achieved in a way that respects the heritage.
Even the most environmentally conscious approach to construction and energy will inherently still come with some carbon cost.
How carbon is measured and how decarbonisation could be managed locally were identified as key to fostering sustainable development.
It was pointed out that the region has a natural carbon sink in the fens, which is a highly valuable resource given the lack of carbon offsetting mechanisms and carbon credits in the UK. Utilising the fens in this way was mooted as a potential spring board for a highly successful green economy in the area that furthers disruptive technology and research in this field.
