The Carbon Project

Chair: Kat Ibbotson - Programme carbon and cost manager – Environment Agency

The net-zero challenge, in all its scale and complexity, requires a cross-industry response with collaboration at its heart. An open approach to carbon reporting will hasten industry transformation and bolster collaborative efforts. The whole value chain – including asset owner/managers, designers, constructors and product/material suppliers – should be able to contribute to and benefit from these developments.

Consideration of carbon impacts covering capital, operational and user GHG emissions will allow management of carbon within both the control and influence of infrastructure. Taking a whole-life approach will maximise opportunities for joint carbon and cost reductions. The scope of capital carbon impact considerations will need to include materials, products, design solutions and construction techniques.

Measuring and monitoring is important because if we do not monitor and measure, we will not know if our interventions are delivering the desired change, or if we are focusing our intervention effort in the most important, impactful areas. Consideration of carbon impacts - and understanding these impacts within the context of the Paris Agreement - will allow the value chain to better understand the impact and value of the project. This can have a motivational effect and link in with a broader appraisal of project outcomes, for example based on the UN SDGs.

Sharing is important because it helps engagement and enables benchmarking. Benchmarking and having sound data in the public domain changes attitudes and priorities.

Chair: Steve Denton - Executive Director & Head of Civil, Bridge and Ground Engineering at WSP

Making progress on net-zero carbon design and delivery against the demands of clients, society and pressures on costs requires new skills, refreshed knowledge and professional support, especially when it comes to new regulations, challenging design standards and codes, specification of zero carbon solutions and designing for automated delivery.

Chair: Tim Chapman – Director - Arup

Infrastructure is heavily networked and interconnected, composed of ‘systems within systems.’ Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its use therefore requires a strategic approach. As the majority of the assets that will be in use by 2050 have already been built, we will have to make the assets we have already work more efficiently, to help achieve the net zero target.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to ask searching questions of what society truly wants from its infrastructure systems, and whether long term demand will continue to increase unchecked.