Raising Sustainability in Construction

According to The World Green Building Council, the construction industry has a vital role to play with climate change mitigation. The construction industry is estimated to be responsible for more than 35% of global carbon emissions. The total carbon emissions are further divided to 1) emissions associated with energy used to operate the building or in the operation of infrastructure; and 2) emissions associated with materials and processes across the lifecycle of a building or infrastructure.

Due to the industry’s impact on the climate, the usage of smart building technologies, low-carbon materials and modern construction methods can become cornerstones for sustainable construction. 

Modern construction methods can be a universal enabler as these orchestrate all sustainability aspects in a comprehensive manner:

• Positive environmental impacts are achieved by end-to-end design process which promotes key sustainability decisions and actions, such as emission and energy consumption target setting and low-carbon material selection, are made early in the design phase.
• Positive social impacts are embedded to construction process work queues and work packages promoting workers’ welfare in terms of work instructions, work safety, training and control of fair wages and work-life balance.  
• Governance and code of conduct practices can be improved by combining co-operation and collaboration with digitalized processes promoting information visibility and commitment across supply chains and local communities. 

As a matter of fact, modern construction methods have two-fold effect on construction: while raising sustainability parameters to the next level, these methods also improve the site performance and deliver concrete results in terms of lead time, resource, material cost and working capital reduction.

Achieving Sustainable Construction Goals

Sustainability needs to be considered across the entire lifespan of building or infrastructure. Early phases in the construction process are crucial from a sustainability point of view. Significant decisions related to environmental aspects should be made in design phase. Social and governance aspects relate closely to construction methods selected and used. The construction method selection and deployment take place prior to the design phase during a phase called product development. The product development phase itself is the Achilles heel of construction process as vital content is often missing from construction project plans in this phase. The overall outcome is that key sustainability concepts need be defined and frozen in early phases of construction process, even before the production planning phase, far before any concrete actions are taken in the construction site.

The end-to-end design approach covers a range of activities to tackle environmental aspects. For example, the building or infrastructure meets end-of-life requirements for convertibility, disassembly, and reuse when design instructions are closely followed. The end-to-end design approach has horizontal and vertical impacts. Horizontally, the focus is on the lifecycle of the construction project - a building or infrastructure. Vertically, the focus reflects on parallel activities which should occur simultaneously during certain timeframes. An example of vertical focus is supplier collaboration. Supplier involvement in the design phase has remarkable impact on environmental stress and emissions from supply chain. Once the supplier commits to the construction project material demands and schedules, it has huge potential to reduce GHG scope 3 emissions while optimizing own production planning and material production capacities.

Building information model (BIM) acts as a key technical component and building block to accomplish vital sustainability goals. The building information model is a core component for following use cases in sustainable construction:

• Material quantity calculation produces the optimal material demand, complete emission calculation schema and eliminates waste when materials are linked to objects and exact dimensions defined in BIM. Complete material quantity calculation is one of the most important drivers in circular economy perspective, and results in material consumption reductions – which is the first level and the top priority of waste management hierarchy.  
• Construction timetable and sequences are defined by BIM block definitions. The optimized timetable synchronizes all activities in the construction site, ensuring just-in-time material deliveries with minimum energy consumption and improved workers’ security with proper time for planning and preparation.  
• BIM block definitions are also used for construction site logistics planning. The proper plan removes unnecessary material movements, temporal warehousing and allows workers to focus on their core activities with high and stable security levels.

Sustainability in construction is dependent on construction process digitalization and technology platforms. Information from various sources in various formats needs to be integrated and consolidated efficiently without human intervention. The unfortunate fact is that the biggest obstacles in sustainable achievements are inadequate implementation and deployment of technology enablers – even though there are proven solutions and technologies available.

How Tech Mahindra Helps

Tech Mahindra’s sustainable construction offering allows customers to build their own pathway to sustainable construction. The service offering consists of:

• Sustainable and monetary value streams across the supply chain.
• Modern construction methods supporting sustainable and cost-efficient construction.
• Construction process digitalization, business solutions and technology landscape.

The customer’s own construction project information acts as a starting point for service delivery. Based on customer project information the first phase, called bootcamp, produces gap analysis and roadmap on how the current practices, methods and business platforms could be developed to reach targets set for sustainability and performance. The next proof-of-concept phase utilizes the bootcamp output to deploy the defined content to selected construction project. During the proof-of-concept phase all content definitions are productized to implement a truly scalable solution for the entire project set.