The carbon footprint of the construction firm behind some of the UK's finest structures, BAM Construct UK, has fallen by 11 per cent compared to 2008.
BAM has now measured its footprint for three years and the reduction for 2009 follows a reduction of seven per cent the year before. The company says the fast progress has come from all three main sources of emissions, the most notable being from construction sites, with a lot less fuel and electricity being consumed despite increasing construction turnover. Data collection and measurement has also improved, enabling it to evaluate more accurately. Jesse Putzel, BAM’s Climate Change Manager, said:
‘Last year CO2 emissions reduced by approximately 2,243 tonnes. Put another way, this is enough CO2 to fill 440 hot air balloons or the whole of Wembley stadium (with some to spare).
‘Normalising our emissions against turnover shows we’ve reduced our emissions intensity (eg the amount of CO2 we emit per £million of work) by 13%. This is great news and is testament to the hard work everyone has put in to reducing energy use and raising awareness of good practices.
‘It is a real sign that we are becoming more efficient.’
Measures implemented by BAM to achieve these reductions include, remote monitoring of energy, providing an in-house energy management advice service to sites, reducing the use of generators and improving the efficiency of its fleet.
The company announced in January that it has signed 10:10, the UK’s carbon reduction commitment; its work on the Co-operative Group's new building in Manchester aims to achieve a BREEAM 'outstanding' ranking - currently only achieved by one UK structure. Great Ormond Street Hospital believes the new clinical buildings sponsored by Morgan Stanley will be the greenest hospital facilities in Europe, and the company is at work on one of the UK's pathfinder projects, Montgomery Primary School in Exeter, with zero carbon ambitions using the Passivhaus design. BAM has placed a summary of its report on its website.
