What’s preventing lower-carbon procurement?
The delegates agreed that one of the biggest barriers was a limited awareness of low-carbon options throughout the sector, with knowledgeable people often working in silos.
They identified several other limiting factors. These included:
funding models that prioritise upfront costs over lifetime carbon performance;
procurement and governance processes that lack decarbonisation objectives;
little shared understanding of what constitutes good practice;
insufficient financial incentives to encourage carbon-conscious decision-making; and
the misconception that measures to cut emissions always increase costs.
Workshop discussions at the conference highlighted the importance of applying PAS 2080 throughout the infrastructure delivery process. Participants described using the standard to establish carbon baselines and reporting requirements, enabling more consistent low-carbon decision-making across procurement and asset management.
Summarising 52 recommended actions from the event, Holstovs said that the key to minimising a project’s lifetime emissions is to focus on this task at the outset.
“Most actions were allocated to early stages of projects, recognising the fact that those stages are most impactful in achieving cost‑effective carbon reduction,” noted Holstovs, who is a senior engineer at AECOM.
Participants also stressed the importance of integrating carbon management and social value considerations into the procurement process.
One of the biggest barriers to lower-carbon procurement was a limited awareness of low-carbon options throughout the sector, with knowledgeable people often working in silos
Ethical decision-making
ICE members “must take all reasonable steps to minimise environmental harm for the lifecycle of their projects”, said Holstovs, noting that sustainable procurement should be a key part of this.
He highlighted the updated ICE Code of Professional Conduct, which states that engineers have a duty to give “full regard” to the environment in their decision-making. In effect, this has put carbon management on a par with protecting people’s health and safety.
A draft summary of the conference’s findings will be shared with key external stakeholders across the sector. The final report is due in September.
Decarbonising developments in Scotland
The forum also heard from Rod Lovie, principal climate change strategy officer at Moray Council in north-east Scotland, on how his organisation is working to minimise the CO2 emissions of new developments.
He highlighted two mechanisms that help Scottish planning authorities to do this: National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) – a strategy for making Scotland net zero and nature-positive by 2045 – and local development plans.
Moray Council is working to minimise the CO2 emissions of projects (pictured: Elgin, home of the council's HQ)
All new developments must comply with NPF4, although its requirements vary according to a project’s size. Developments comprising fewer than 10 dwellings or non-residential buildings with less than 1,000m2 of floorspace must submit a qualitative carbon statement and show how they would adapt to an increase in the identified climate-related risks, Lovie explained.
By contrast, any larger development needs to provide a quantitative statement. This must include a whole-life carbon assessment calculating its total emissions and how these will be minimised, plus any standards the project will conform with – e.g. PAS 2080. They must also consider climate adaptation measures and provide additional planning information such as proposals for renewable energy generation or carbon sequestration.
When assessing planning applications, councils need to understand the potential climate impacts of a development and the scope for mitigating them, but they must also consider the “opportunity costs” of refusing permission, Lovie said.
The key questions to consider, he said, are: what can the proposed development do to reduce its emissions – and what would be the impacts of not building it?
Get involved
The ICE holds three Decarbonisation Community Forums a year to discuss ways to embed effective carbon management in infrastructure delivery. Covering topics ranging from lower-carbon materials to ethical decision-making, these sessions also showcase best-practice applications of PAS 2080. For information about future forums, contact amanda.rice@ice.org.uk.
Amanda Rice is climate programme specialist at the ICE
Image credits: Shutterstock/Clare Louise Jackson/Mino Surkala
