CETG July 2022 Update

Dear friends and contributors of the CETG,

I hope you’re all well – and for those in the UK, I hope you’re staying cool during this record-breaking heatwave.

I thought it was about time for another update sharing some of the fantastic climate action that’s been happening at the institution (and beyond)! As always, you’re receiving this email because you and I have had conversations in the past about climate action and engineering – but do let me know if you’d like me to now remove you from this list.

GUIDANCE AND TRAINING

• Sustainability Report Template – The Structural Plan of Work (SPOW) requires a Sustainability Report to be issued at certain points in the design process. To aid engineers with doing this, the CETG and IStructE Sustainability Panel came together to create a template which can be filled in with project-specific information. This is a great way to quickly demonstrate to the client how sustainability has been tackled, and can be downloaded as a Word document from www.istructe.org/spow
• Sustainability Checklist – This checklist complements the report by providing engineers with a list of topics and actions to consider throughout the design process. The intention is to keep the checklist live, so please get in touch if you’d like to make suggestions for anything we could do to improve it!
• The Structural Engineer – We’re currently planning 2023’s issues, and are looking for authors to produce articles related to offsite construction, low-carbon domestic-scale engineering, and reuse of steel elements. If you’d like to contribute to any of these, either as an author or a specialist reviewer, please contact [email protected].
• Net Zero Structural Design – We continue to sell out on this popular course, which has been run several times already as both public courses and in-house training. The feedback has been fantastic, and course attendees have repeatedly said that they’ve found the information taught to be of use in their work. Sign up for the September cohort here before it sells out again!
• Embodied Carbon Basics – We also continue to get a good crowd of engineers passing through this e-learning course each month, which covers everything you need to know to get to grips with embodied carbon calculations, and key properties of the main structural materials. Free to IStructE members and affiliates, you can start the course here
• Universities – Finally on guidance, a note to say that CETG member Niamh McCloskey has kindly volunteered to start speaking regularly to university courses about the institution, our approach to low-carbon design, and the guidance and tools we have available. Please get in touch if you’d like more information!

EVENTS

• Climate Emergency Conference 2022 – Hold the date! This year’s online climate emergency conference will be held during the afternoon (UK time) of Wednesday 5th October. We’ll be talking all things carbon, biodiversity, and influence – with a practical focus as always. More details to follow…
• Structural Engineers Declare Summit 2022 – Similarly, the SED Action Group have started planning this year’s SED summit, to be held during the afternoon (UK time) of Wednesday 12th October. This year’s summit will be a hybrid event, with in-person invites being extended to the signatory from each of the declared firms, and an online option available for anyone else who would like to watch the summit remotely.
• Hong Kong Regional Group sustainability event – We’re also planning a sustainability event for engineers based in Hong Kong, during the afternoon (Hong Kong time) of Wednesday 28th September. This will be the first event of its kind in the country, so if you have colleagues based out there, please let them know – they can sign up at this link.
• Footprint+ and Circular Steel – Finally, I just wanted to reflect on these two truly exceptional events that were held in June. Footprint+ 2022 was the debut performance of this new property and sustainability conference held in Brighton, with a jam-packed list of amazing speakers talking on all the topics you need to know about if you work in sustainability and the built environment. A few weeks later, and Circular Steel held its first event in London, bringing together designers, fabricators, contractors, insurers and developers to talk about the reuse of steel. A personal highlight for me was EMR presenting their EPD for reused steel sections, coming in at a super-low 47 kgCO2e/tonne.

WIDER INDUSTRY IMPACT

• Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard - Whilst significant progress has been made in defining what ‘net zero’ means for buildings in the UK, a process of market analysis showed a clear demand for a single, agreed methodology. The UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard will enable industry to robustly prove their built assets are net zero carbon and in line with our nation’s climate targets. Last month, we commenced the process of bringing volunteers on board to help develop the standard, which will be led by a governance board and steering group formed from representatives from the BBP, BRE, the Carbon Trust, CIBSE, IStructE, LETI, RIBA, RICS, and UKGBC. Visit the www.NZCBuildings.co.uk to learn more.
• Part Z and embodied carbon regulation – Despite everything else that’s happening in UK politics at the moment, this is a topic that continues to stay on the agenda across Westminster, with Jerome Mayhew MP reintroducing the Carbon Emissions (Buildings) Bill to parliament after it was withdrawn earlier in the year. The Bill has its second reading lined up for November – see the two newest news articles at https://part-z.uk/press for more information. The continued drive for regulation happens largely due to the Part Z campaign’s many supporters. We now have over 170 statements of support for the regulation of embodied carbon, with recent supporters including Barratt Homes, Urban&Civic, and Natwest – read the statements here.
• Regenerative design research – Finally, I would like to share with you the great work that’s ongoing by attendees of Constructivist’s 2022 regenerative design research lab. This year’s cohort is a mix of designers, architects, engineers and educators, all working together to better understand Regenerative Design and its application to their line of work. I am working on understanding what structural engineers might do today to enable a more regenerative built environment, and starting by asking people to complete the attached table and share it with me. If you have ten minutes spare, please consider having a go! There’s a worked example linked in the comments on this LinkedIn post.

Hopefully that gives you some good reading for the summer. Do get in touch if you think you have anything of wide interest that you’d like to see me share later in the year!

Will