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4 Stepping Stones to Sustainability for New Construction Firms

Posted on March 15, 2024 by dishanth

4 Stepping Stones to Sustainability for New Construction Firms

The construction industry has a well-deserved reputation for being an environmental polluter. It has gotten away with ungreen practices because the other sectors are just as dirty, if not more. However, climate change has made the world less tolerant of environmentally unsound organizations. Governments have joined the sustainability movement, so the writing is on the wall for maladaptive enterprises.

Many firms are slow to adopt greener practices, but the influx of startups can accelerate the sector’s sustainability transformation. New design-build firms, general contracting businesses, and subcontractors are better positioned to embrace eco-friendly initiatives.

The corporate culture is still a blank canvas, so start fresh with these four tips.

Go Digital

Technological adoption and sustainability go hand in hand. Outdated methods and crude tools limit your ability to overcome your blind spots and find opportunities to operate more sustainably. Investing in digital technologies is necessary to address your pain points and streamline your processes.

Which innovations should you prioritize? There are numerous excellent candidates:

Mobile devices and messaging tools can harness cloud computing’s potential to promote remote resource access and foster interconnectedness. The interplay between these technologies will break down the usual communication barriers, making it easy to keep everybody on the same page.
Computer-aided design, building information modeling, and construction management programs streamline processes. They have unique functions but digitize data so you can review information more granularly. Analytics programs can reveal insights to solve problems that harm the environment, like surplus inventory and rework.
LiDAR and camera-equipped drones, wearable Internet of Things devices, and telematics systems can collect data on almost anything. They can help you precisely and accurately scan the landscape to minimize disturbance on existing ecosystems, quantify worker performance to identify and correct wasteful habits and keep tabs on equipment usage.
Bots automate tedious tasks, allowing you to conduct construction work more efficiently. Robotic arm 3D printers and bricklayers can help you complete projects faster and decrease material waste.

Construction has been slow to innovate primarily due to employee hesitance. Feeling intimidated by innovative solutions and receiving inadequate technical support are some of the usual baggage crews carry. Budget for training and continuous learning, as technologically savvy workers feel comfortable with innovations and can maximize their tools to run your business more sustainably.

Be Circular

Circularity promotes using renewable, reclaimed or recycled materials, reusing or repurposing items, recovering salvageable materials, and designing structures with easily recoverable components. Such practices aim to leave the remaining virgin resources untouched because logging, mining and quarrying have considerable environmental consequences. These extraction methods destroy natural habitats, displace wildlife, eradicate biodiversity, pollute soil, water and air, and reduce natural carbon sinks.

Considering the planet’s finite resources, the construction industry has to switch from the linear to the circular model sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the sector will face crippling supply chain disruptions, which can result in project delays and loss of profits. How do you join the circular economy?

Buy reclaimed, recycled and repurposed construction supplies: Try doing so whenever you can to help conserve virgin resources.
Choose vendors carefully: Circular suppliers engaging in unethical practices practice greenwashing, not sustainability. Exercise due diligence to ensure your supply chain partners are as green as they claim to be to avoid enriching environmentally damaging businesses.
Select used equipment over new products: Purchasing pre-owned tools, machines and vehicles is sustainable because they’re already around. Ordering brand-new assets incentivizes manufacturers to build more products, potentially using newly extracted raw materials. Plus, pre-owned models save you money because used items cost less, less downtime is necessary for training and replacement parts are usually cheaper.
Put a premium on prefabrication: Prefab construction minimizes waste since it’s easier to control material usage when building components off-site in a factory-controlled environment. More importantly, construction modules lend themselves to deconstruction, simplifying dismantling and material recovery for reuse or resale.

Emit Less

Decarbonize your operations at every turn. Switching from diesel to electric is one of the best ways to do so. Powering your assets with nothing but electricity eliminates air and noise pollution on-site.

Running on electricity doesn’t automatically translate to fewer greenhouse gas emissions. In 2023, fossil fuels produced 60% of the electricity generated in the United States. The nation’s power mix will be cleaner once green hydrogen becomes ubiquitous, so operating electric construction assets will be even more eco-friendly in the future.

If upgrading to electric equipment doesn’t make sense for you, adopting renewable diesel is the next best thing. This alternative fuel is chemically identical to fossil-derived diesel, so you can use it on your existing assets without modifying anything. Renewable diesel releases fewer climate change gasses because it burns cleaner.

Furthermore, localize your supply chain. Ships are responsible for 3% of all greenhouse gasses linked to human activities globally. Ordering materials from overseas will increase your construction firm’s carbon footprint, but transporting domestically sourced materials involves fewer emissions. It’s also logically simple because they cover less ground and avoid Customs and Border Protection. As a bonus, you enjoy shorter lead times.

Make it a mission to have a lean mindset. A lean construction philosophy aims to cut waste at every chance, minimizing idle time and redundant processes that drive up greenhouse gas emissions.

Look Ahead

Sustainability isn’t an objective — it’s a purpose. It’s a never-ending pursuit, so always seek new ways to run your construction firm in an environmentally friendly way.

Lack of knowledge about emerging technologies is among the limiting factors in innovating. Curiosity is the antidote to ignorance, so keep up with the hottest trends in eco-building. Transparent wood, superabsorbent hydrogel, luminescent cement, 3D-printed soil structures, biodegradable polyurethane foam and plasma rock are some of the most promising innovations.

Most promising eco-friendly construction solutions take a lot of development before becoming ready for sale — and only a few ultimately gain mainstream acceptance. Although many ingenious ideas don’t pan out, be ahead of the curve. Use them to inspire regenerative and climate-resilient building designs that positively impact the environment for decades.

Take Small Steps Toward Sustainability

These four strategies only scratch the surface of what you do to be a force for good in the sector’s sustainability transformation. Strive to be more eco-friendly as you grow and you’ll establish a solid reputation as a green construction business.

Source Happy Eco News

Greenwashing is out: companies need to get serious about their sustainability journey

Posted on November 8, 2023 by dishanth

Businesses are increasingly being held accountable for their environmental and social impact. And Siegwerk, a global provider of inks and coatings for packaging, has taken a leading role in driving sustainability within the sector. The company is committed to producing packaging solutions to drive a circular economy for the industry, and supporting sustainable transitions along its supply chain.

Like many companies, Siegwerk has taken an incremental approach to expanding its sustainability strategy. “We started our sustainability journey by looking at how our products could better enable a circular economy,” says Alina Marm, Global Head of Sustainability and Circular Economy at Siegwerk. “That laid the groundwork for us to launch an entire new strategy on sustainability with a broad scope, covering carbon neutrality targets and diversity as a quantifiable target, but also looking at the conditions in our supply chain and creating transparency around these conditions in order to continuously improve.”

For Marm, the three primary aspects that define sustainable packaging are true circularity, carbon neutrality and fairness in the supply chain: “Carbon neutrality meaning zero emissions, and fairness in the supply chain meaning that there’s nobody who suffers as a result of your business practices.”

There is an increased need for transparency around companies’ sustainability data. Consumers are more educated about greenwashing and will no longer just take companies at their word when it comes to sustainability claims. Special interest groups such as NGOs are also publicly highlighting discrepancies between company commitments and performance.

“There is a huge regulatory push to bring sustainability reporting on par with financial reporting. And this is a game-changer. It’s going to make it much easier for consumers to look up data and make decisions about which products to buy and which companies to support,” Marm says.

But this is one area that is severely lagging. A survey conducted by Deloitte in April 2022 revealed that only 3 per cent of consumer companies say they produce sustainability data that is as accurate and verifiable as their financial data. Siegwerk is one of the first companies in its sector to commit to reporting on the carbon footprint of its products. “There is no option but to embrace sustainability holistically,” says Marm. “It’s not just about doing the right thing, it’s also about remaining competitive and future-proofing your business.”

Source Independent

Has KFC found the secret sauce to circular packaging?

Posted on July 11, 2022 by dishanth

Fast food restaurants are big waste generators. However, the lack of viable sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic and the industry’s emphasis on cost and convenience means cheap, disposable foodware will be on their menus for some time yet.

Fast food chain KFC and Singapore-based sustainable foodware company TRIA are looking to disrupt the fast-food packaging industry with what they call the “world’s first” closed-loop single-use packaging pilot project.

In a six-month trial, one KFC restaurant in Singapore will switch its non-recyclable boxes, cups, and cutlery to those made from NEUTRIA, a rapidly degrading plant-based polyester developed by TRIA. The used packaging will be collected by TRIA and fed into their patented Bio24 digester, which turns it into compost within 24 hours.

Conventional plastic recycling faces many challenges in Singapore. Even if the food packaging is technically recyclable, segregating and cleaning it could potentially cost five times more than producing new packaging from scratch. Furthermore, most of the country’s plastic is incinerated. With little incentive to recycle or reduce plastic consumption, plastic waste is only expected to increase. Since 2017, plastic recycling rates have remained extremely low, usually hovering around 4 – 6 percent.

TRIA’s patented Bio24 digester, which can turn NEUTRIA packaging and food waste into compost within 24 hours. Image: Eco-Business

TRIA claims its product can remain relatively cost-competitive without compromising on sustainability. However, apart from ensuring the product’s economic viability, TRIA’s chief executive Ng Pei Kang says that sustainable foodware companies must give higher priority to their F&B partner’s operational needs if they are to make such packaging more widely accepted.

“I think it’s great that we are experimenting with [sustainable foodware like reusable cups], but we also need to empathise more with the food brands. How can KFC extend this to the 20,000 outlets they own without changing their operations? [With our model], they don’t need to hire more people or get new trash bins. If it’s not business as usual, it would be very tough [for restaurants to accept these new packaging products].” Ng said in an interview with Eco-Business.

During the pilot launch event at Shanaya Environmental Services on 21 June, KFC revealed that cost-competitiveness, design flexibility and operational resilience were some of the main factors which attracted them to TRIA’s product.

“Since 2017, we’ve been looking for new ways to reduce our use of non-recyclable packaging. We’ve previously considered edible spoons, but they could not meet our cost or operational requirements. However, TRIA was open to extensive redesigns and testing to ensure their product could withstand our daily operating needs and be collected and processed at an acceptable price point,” said Lynette Lim, general manager of KFC in an interview with Eco-Business.

The mashed potato/coleslaw cup, cutlery, pockets and mat made of NEUTRIA by TRIA for their 6-month pilot with KFC. Image: Eco-Business

Redesigning KFC’s mashed potato and coleslaw cup was particularly difficult for TRIA’s designers. Using the company’s plant-based material, the cup had to maintain its structural integrity when stacked, in addition to being heat and moisture-resistant. While it has yet to be tested in-store conditions, Lim cited this as an example of TRIA’s commitment to KFC’s operational standards.

For every tonne of NEUTRIA and food waste fed into the digester, TRIA claims that 200 – 300kg of compost can be produced. While the company has not yet secured an offtake agreement for its compost, it has signed memorandum of understandings (MOUs) with local rooftop farming company Comcrop, and Norwegian chemical and fertiliser company Yara International. Ng also highlighted how TRIA’s products and services can help these companies achieve their own business goals in a more profitable and sustainable way.

“Yara is looking to expand their regional presence here, and I think they are interested in our product because it could be a low-carbon source of fertiliser. In Europe, they have access to hydroponic power, which allows them to profitably produce low-carbon, green fertiliser. However, shipping this fertiliser to Asia is not realistic. That’s where we come in,” Ng explained.

Finished bags of compost made from NEUTRIA packaging and food waste. Image: Eco-Business.

In an upcoming bio-valorisation pilot, Yara hopes to produce bio-equivalent fertiliser from TRIA’s compost. Upon receiving TRIA’s product, Yara could theoretically adjust its nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus content to ensure that it is nutritionally equivalent to commercial fertilisers. Other than reducing costs, the closed-loop system allows the fertiliser to be traced, therefore building greater confidence in prospective buyers.

However, TRIA’s technology is not without drawbacks. The composting system hinges on TRIA’s ability to take ownership of and reprocess its post-consumer waste. Singapore is planning to introduce an extended producer responsibility (EPR) law for packaging by 2025, which could reduce public expenditure and the amount of waste sent to landfills. Nevertheless, Professor Seeram Ramakrishna, a mechanical engineering professor and chair of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Circular Economy Taskforce pointed out that achieving EPR has its difficulties.

What is extended producer responsibility (EPR)?
EPR is a policy approach where producers are given significant financial and/or physical responsibility for the treatment and disposal of post-consumer products.

“For EPR to work effectively, the presence of good waste management systems must be in place, including infrastructure to reprocess the waste. There should be a high level of compliance and enforcement,” explained Ramakrishna.

While Ng is confident TRIA can handle KFC’s in-store waste, he admitted that a system for managing takeaway waste remains elusive for now.

“Takeaway waste will still be sent to the public waste management system. However, the majority of packaging is used for dine-in purposes, and that’s where we are able to help,” Ng said.

In a previous interview with Eco-Business, Ng also professed that sourcing top talent for the sustainable food packaging industry remains a challenge. Furthermore, the hygiene and economic concerns of the pandemic have slowed the appetite for innovative new technologies like TRIA’s, he said. However, he stated that a partnership with one of the world’s most recognisable brands was an important step towards a circular packaging economy.

Source Eco Business