Calls to action such as Structural Engineers Declare refer to a ‘Climate and Biodiversity Crisis’, yet most focus in our industry is on climate alone. Climate breakdown and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked, accelerating each other. The world has experienced a 69% decline in biodiversity populations around the world since 1970, with countries like the UK amongst the worst offenders. And at the same time, the construction industry is one of the most extractive in the world – humanity extracts more aggregates each year than it does fossil fuels. All of this means that the impact of construction materials is currently an immense threat to nature, but could become a great opportunity to regenerate the living world.
In this lecture, you will hear from those in the industry who are bringing together research and data surrounding the embodied ecological impacts of construction materials. Much like embodied carbon, these are the ecological impacts that occur at the source of a material’s extraction and processing, rather than on-site where the materials end up. Early research indicates that the embodied ecological impacts of materials can far outweigh the on-site impacts that are the focus of legislation such as ‘biodiversity net gain’. Yet, until we understand what such impacts look like, and until they can be quantified and managed, we cannot act to reduce them.
This lecture aims to outline the work being undertaken to better understand the broad environmental impacts of construction materials, for example:
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Habitat destruction in sensitive land and marine ecosystems
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Pollution from byproducts of raw material extraction
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Increased drought risks due to water use in mining
The speakers will give insights into:
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What sort of impacts occur when we use construction materials
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What can be done today to reduce those impacts
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What steps are being taken to better understand this developing field