3rd Brunel International Lecture:

Delivering
Sustainable Development
Gold Coast, 3 October 2001; Brisbane, 3 October 2001;
Sydney, 8 October 2001; Melbourne, 11 October 2001;
Auckland, 10 October 2001; London 12 February 2002;
Leeds 12 March 2002; Durban, 30 April 2002; Johannesburg, 2 May 2002;
East London (South Africa), 7 May 2002

Roger Venables
Managing Director, Crane Environmental Ltd,
and Chairman of the Institution of Civil Engineers’
Environment & Sustainability Board

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

Six central contentions of this lecture:

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

Six central contentions:

3. Sustainable development needs an immense
contribution from engineers and engineering.
4. It needs engineers to work with the many
others involved – to do that well, and with an
open mind.
5. The best engineering and construction is,
perhaps, already – or almost – good enough.

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

• But we need to make sustainable development

normal.
• Engineers generally must take a lead and play
their full part.
• Fuzziness’ in the definitions of sustainable
development is no excuse for doing nothing.
Practical action is possible now – and needed –
by everyone involved in development.

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

Coverage of lecture:

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
Coverage of lecture:
• What do we mean by and know about
sustainable development
• Civil engineering in the context of sustainable
development
• Some of the challenges and issues it presents
• A selection of projects and initiatives
• How to make sustainable development normal
• Actions needed and how to move practice
forward

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 Delivering sustainable development
• UK Government’s 1999 Sustainable
Development Strategy both reflects and leads
public opinion, attitudes and actions
• Called A better quality of life, it defines SD as:
 social progress which meets the needs of everyone
 effective protection of the environment
 prudent use of natural resources
 maintenance of high and stable levels of economic
growth and employment
• Sustainable Construction Strategy 2000 –
Building a better quality of life, now being
updated by DTi – Workshop yesterday
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 Delivering sustainable development

• Forum for the Future definition

• “Sustainable development is a process, which
enables all people to realise their potential and
improve their quality of life in ways that
simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s
life support systems.”

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Thus a distinction needs to be made between a

sustainable society or ‘sustainable living’ as the
goal and ‘sustainable development’ as the
process that will get us there

• However, let us also accept that

sustainable development is also used as a term
about built development - in the UK,
‘sustainable construction’ is being used

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 Economic
Success

Severe
Social disquiet
environmental
or unrest
damage
Sustainable
Development

Social Does not proceed, or

High
Success economic loss Environmental
 © Crane Environmental Quality
 Economic
Success

Un-sustainable
project
Social High
Success Environmental
 © Crane Environmental Quality
 Delivering sustainable development

• UK Strategy says that delivery of sustainable

development must be across all sectors of
society

• and DTI is pushing industry sectors to

produce their own strategies

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 Delivering sustainable development

• We can sub-divide SD delivery many ways, eg:

sustainable construction
sustainable manufacturing industry
sustainable farming
sustainable forestry
sustainable transport and tourism
all of which become elements of
sustainable living

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

• So, in short:

• Sustainable Development is development

that enables Sustainable Living

• Delivering sustainable development will enable

us all to live more and more sustainably

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 Delivering sustainable development
So, in this lecture I mean ‘delivering’:
• built development that sustains life and
improves the quality of life for human beings
• work that removes the environmental or social
damage from the past
• work to improve the sustainability of the wider
environment and ecosystems
• plus, development of individuals as people, of
groups, and of societal quality of life generally
• all in an economically successful way but also
within Planet Earth’s carrying capacity
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 Delivering sustainable development

Two important provisos:

• Lecture complementary to Special Issue of
ICE’s Journal Civil Engineering, Nov. 2000:
‘Sustainable development: Making it happen’

• Not discussing climate change, nor other

major related political issues such as the call
for population control – just two of many
drivers for sustainable development

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 Delivering sustainable development

• The two most-commonly-asked questions:

 What should I do differently?

 Can we recognise a sustainable

development when we see one?

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 Delivering sustainable development
• So, what is it that makes for ‘sustainable
development? Is it:
Where it is: land use, ecological impact?
What it is or is for: materials choice and use,
aesthetics, function?
How it was built: construction impacts?
How it performs: ‘joy in use’, energy and
water efficiency, maintainability, durability,
flexibility, financial success?
All four at once?

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Civil engineering and sustainable development

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
• Civil engineering and sustainable development
A water supply project: a balance between
use of natural resources and social and
economic benefits brought to people
But: concern on particular projects about
– disruption to natural processes
– scale of the infrastructure + demand-led
– adverse impact on some for the benefit of
others
Need for the ‘right’ balance

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 Delivering sustainable development

• The ‘right’ balance has not always been

achieved in the past:
• We have mastered ‘the art of directing the
great sources of nature for the use and
convenience of man…’
BUT
• We have done it – and may still do it – in
disharmony with the environment and
with some of our fellow citizens

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 Delivering sustainable development

• How well did we do in the past?

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Mid-1800s: one of civil engineering’s most

important contributions was improvement of
public health
Joseph Bazelgette’s interceptor sewers in
London are still in use today
Now over 100 species of fish are back in the
River Thames

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 Delivering sustainable development
• Transport infrastructure:
Marc Brunel’s Thames Tunnel lasted well
over a century before major refurbishment
was needed
Isombard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western
Railway from London to Bristol (completed
in 1841) still in use today

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 Delivering sustainable development

• These examples pass the high quality design

test, for example in durability and flexibility …
• … and railways are now considered a ‘green’
form of transport
• Yet they are rarely economically successful
over the long term, and
• 19th Century Railway bills subjected to strong
opposition at all stages of their promotion

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Use of materials:
Timber viaducts became uneconomic when
Baltic timbers were no longer available
No record of Brunel or GWR planting new
trees to re-grow stock used for their bridges

• I K Brunel’s management style …

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 Delivering sustainable development

• So, is the GWR an example of sustainable civil

engineering or not?

• You be the judge!

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 Delivering sustainable development

• In summary so far:
 Many engineers have for many years been
trying to take into account the issues in
the sustainable development concept`
 But we – and our clients – have taken
insufficient account of the impact of
construction and operations on the
environment and society
 We have paid too little attention to
resource efficiency.

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

• However …
 We have recently learnt a great deal
about how to avoid inadequacies of
much of past practice.
 We now know what actions to take to
deliver a less-unsustainable future and, at
best, a sustainable future
 Sustainable development needs an
immense contribution from engineers
and engineering.

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

• Will show later that delivering sustainable

development is possible

• First - Issues and challenges to resolve:

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

Issues and challenges to resolve:

• SD challenge is very large – but we can tackle it
• It involves new ways of thinking about
development, eg:
 The idea that projects need to be in
better harmony with more sectors of
society, not just with select groups
 The need for a whole-life approach –
whole-life costing and whole-life
environmental assessment

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
Issues and challenges to resolve:
• Recognition – Often in the detail
• The resource efficiency challenge
 A great need
 ‘Factor 10’
 A few are demonstrating dramatic changes
• Social acceptability
 Disconnection between individuals’ action and
environmental impact – so they ask: ‘Why do I have
to change?’
 Dealing with conflicting single-issue groups
 Who decides on the greater good
 Who decides who decides

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
Issues and challenges to resolve:
• Assessment of impacts
How far afield do we look for impacts, both
positive and negative?
Local – Regional – State – World?
• Timescales
How far into the future do we assess? (We’re
bad at futurology!)
Do one’s best on basis of current knowledge
– eg: long life, loose fit, low energy

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
Issues and challenges to resolve:
• The perception that sustainable development is
only for the rich
It’s not! – a myth that it always costs extra
Sustainable development is crucial to
alleviating poverty eg good low-cost housing
• Valuing ‘the environment’
Competing views
Payment vs compensation
• Human values and the environment – We make
value judgements about ‘good’ and ‘bad’

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Projects and Initiatives to help move us

forward:

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 Delivering sustainable development
• Maidenhead Flood Relief Scheme
Design to very high environmental standards
– first Edmund Hambly Memorial ICE prize
Will appear to be a natural river
Costing £98M, yet cost-effective
Now sustaining life in Maidenhead by
significantly reducing the risk of flooding
Yet it should not have been necessary if a
different approach to flood plain
development had been adopted

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
• The Institution of Civil Engineers
 Environment & Sustainability Board
 Appropriate Development Panel
 Overall policy + Position Statements
 Good (Sustainability) Practice Case Sheets
 CEEQUAL – an environmental assessment and
awards scheme ≡ BREEAM
 Sector Sustainability Strategy
 Engineers Against Poverty
 Aiming to push good practice

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 Delivering sustainable development
• Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon
Led by Carillion plc – ‘flagship’ project
Help from ‘The Natural Step’
Aim is ‘green’ credentials second to none
– Waste management
– Materials choice, sourcing and supplier
support
– Plant choices and energy-efficient features of
the design
– Transport plans
– Wildlife and habitat management
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 Delivering sustainable development

• Waste at Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon

Original estimate of waste generated from
construction – 5000 tonnes
Design eliminated half of that
Construction – maximum 14 waste streams
for recycling, only one to landfill
About 250 tonnes to landfill so far
Factor 10 outcome in sight?
Funding regime enabled a long-term view

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 Landfill reduction by composting and
recycling of construction waste

• 50% target reduction from Dartford ( 2500t )

• 500 tonnes timber composted or recycled
• 400 tonnes paper and cardboard
• Compost added to topsoil
• Saving approx. £20k
• To-date only 250 tonnes removed to landfill
• 300 tonnes concrete recycled

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 Delivering sustainable development
• UK Government’s Construction Clients’ Panel
Plan – Achieving sustainability in
construction procurement
Government action to implement its own
policies
Involves Defence Estates, Environment
Agency (for flood defence), Highways
Agency, the Prison Service, Schools, National
Health Service …
Potentially very significant driver for change

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Waste minimisation and Recycling

70 million tonnes of waste every year in UK
This is, per person, 4 x the domestic waste
each person generates per year

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Construction Industry Environmental

Forum + CIRIA Environment Programme
Major influence on leading industry players
Considering ethical investment and other
social issues alongside technical solutions
and environmental management

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 Delivering sustainable development
• Other important UK initiatives
 UK Government’s Construction Clients’ Panel
 Movement for Innovation + demo projects
 BRE Centre for Sustainable Construction
 BSRIA
 HR Wallingford
 TRL
 Steel Construction Institute
 Engineers for the 21st Century Enquiry
 Professional Partnerships for Sustainable
Development
 Forum for the Future
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 Delivering sustainable development

• Since October, the Young Professionals have

formed a foundation – The International
Young Professionals’ Foundation
 [Link], based in Australia
 Already engaging Australian business – Charlie
Hargroves, Ops Director a speaker at Ecofutures:
National Business Leaders’ Forum on Sustainable
Development
 Committed group who want to make a difference

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 Delivering sustainable development

• How do we make sustainable development the

normal way of development

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 Delivering sustainable development

Who buys a product when, and why?

• 2.5% - innovators
• 13.5% - ‘Mr & Mrs Jones’ (the opinion
formers or early adopters)
• 34% - those who keep up with Mr & Mrs

Jones (the early majority)

• 34% - the ‘alright-if-the-price-is-OK’
late majority
• 16% - the ‘alright-if-I-have-to’ laggards
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 Delivering sustainable development

If we think of
• environmental management of construction;
• sustainable construction; and
• sustainable development
as if they were products…

… where are they on the product diffusion curve?

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 Delivering sustainable development

Sales

Awareness?

Sustainable development
Environmental management
Awareness?
of construction in the UK
Practice?
Sustainable construction in the UK

 © Crane Environmental Time
 Delivering sustainable development

• Sustainable development characterised by:

Design principles known to only a few
‘manufacturers’
Test-manufactured and test-marketed, for
example in a few housing developments
Yet elements of the concept are practised
more widely than the overall concept

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

• If sustainable development were a product

• If we were the marketing department of its
owners …
• How would we move Sustainable Development
from …
its small, niche market to …
being as ubiquitous as Coca Cola is as a
‘drink’?

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
We would:
• Identify the next most-likely set of buyers
Clients, developers and project leaders, who
can take a long-term view
• Identify the benefits
easier planning approval
cheaper initial construction
much lower operating costs
social acceptability
easier dis-assembly
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 Delivering sustainable development
We would:
• Study
 why our next target market group buy,
 how they buy,
 how they make buying decisions,
 what advertising messages they respond to
• Identify and deliver our production and delivery
methods, and marketing messages
 actively present the business case
 prepare and disseminate case-studies etc
 use the media, for example at and before
Johannesburg 2002
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 Delivering sustainable development
We would:
• Move on to consider the same questions for
the next target group
• We can – and must – do this for sustainable
development
Marketing Sustainable Development:
• We – all professionals involved in development
– must do this
• We – you and I – can become the marketing
department and the sales force for sustainable
development
 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

How?
• We – you and I – can become the marketing
department and the sales force for sustainable
development
• We can demonstrate the concept as far as we
can in our work and personal lives
• We can target the opinion formers we know –
our clients, our governments, our friends – to
do likewise

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
Marketing Sustainable Development:
• We – all professionals involved in development
– must do so
• We – you and I – can become the marketing
department and the sales force for sustainable
development
• We can demonstrate the concept as far as we
can in our work and personal lives
• We can target the opinion formers we know –
our clients, our governments, our friends – to
do likewise

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

Practical actions needed

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 Delivering sustainable development

• The ICE’s Sector Strategy Working Party is

developing

• Society, Sustainability and Civil

Engineering: A Strategy & Action Plan

• Launch – 24 April, ICE 6.30pm

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Action plan builds on past work, and includes

lists of actions for four groups:
 Clients
 Civil engineering commercial concerns
– designers, contractors, suppliers etc
 Professional and trade groups
 Individuals
• including actions they need to persuade
Government to undertake
• Some examples (mostly in a UK context) …

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

Practical actions needed:

• Re-use and improve existing built assets
• Locate new development appropriately
• Relate land-use planning to transport & other
infrastructure
• Design for minimum waste and effective use of
resources
• Choose an appropriate design life – flexible and
durable, or for dis-assembly & re-use elsewhere
• Minimise life-cycle energy consumption

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
Practical actions needed:
• Utilise renewable energy sources where
appropriate
• Do not pollute the wider environment
• Preserve and enhance natural features and
(appropriate) biodiversity
• Conserve water resources, not all demand-led
• Respect people and their local environment,
and seek to minimise the adverse social impacts
and maximise the positive social impacts of our
projects

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Scale of improvement
We need modest-scale improvements
replicated everywhere

alongside

large improvements achieved on occasional

large-scale projects

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 Delivering sustainable development
Overall, we should be aiming to create
appropriate civil engineering works or buildings:
in the right place and to the right scale
with a sound choice of materials, and sources
with high environmental performance (e.g.
energy & water consumption, +ve impact,
maintainability)
an appropriate design life
in harmony with their surroundings and
neighbours
so that, asap, this way becomes our norm.
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 Delivering sustainable development

So, if that is what is needed,

How do we move practice forward?

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 Delivering sustainable development
How do we move practice forward?
• Have an open mind
• A willingness to learn from each other
• Recognise that no one discipline knows best
• Consider sustainability in everything we do
• Deal more respectfully, considerately yet
effectively with all the people involved
• Accept there is no longer any excuse for doing
nothing, despite the challenges
• Accept it may take more upfront time
 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
How do we move practice forward?
• Adopt a whole life approach using life-cycle
analysis – not just life-cycle costing but life-cycle
environmental analysis as well
• Move towards sustainability impact assessment
instead of just an environmental impact assessment
• Persuade the opinion formers we know – especially
in our clients – to adopt new approaches to their
development projects

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
How do we move practice forward?
• Use the extensive guidance already available –
from wherever on the planet we can find it
• Look for Factor 10 in all we do:
Waste dramatically less
Use dramatically less energy and water
Generate substantial improvements in
social conditions
Achieve obvious improvements in the
natural and built environments

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

How do we move practice forward?

• Educators have a crucial role – in sending civil
engineering and other graduates in built and
natural environment subjects out into the
world understanding what sustainable
development is and how deliver it

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
How do we move practice forward?
• By creating
 appropriate engineering works or buildings
 in the right place and scale
 with a sound choice of materials, and sources
 with high environmental performance
 an appropriate design life
 in harmony with their surroundings and
neighbours

 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development
How do we move practice forward?
• By recognising this as a sustainable
development project:
 exciting, and likely to be beautiful
 highly efficient (and visibly so if possible)
 in harmony with its neighbours and
surroundings and better for the businesses
involved
 a joy to be in or to experience
 good for the business and personal lives of those
involved …
 © Crane Environmental
 Delivering sustainable development

• A challenge:
“Any 21st century professional engineer who is
ignorant of, or ignores, sustainability, who does
not seek to deliver more-sustainable solutions,
and who does not also seek to live more
sustainably, will be an incomplete engineer.”

• ‘True’ or ‘false’?

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 Delivering sustainable development

• Web site for further information

[Link]
then to Knowledge and expertise,
… Environment & Sustainability
… Knowledge map
… Sustainability
… link to Brunel Lecture
 Includes links to other relevant sites

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 Delivering sustainable development

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