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Published: 27 March 2020 in Industry News
Construction 2025: How Green Is Modular Construction?
Overall, UK construction uses more than 40 million tonnes of materials annually, making it the nation’s largest consumer of natural resources. Government and industry strategy states that within the next five years both construction-related emissions and project delivery times must be halved, and one clear solution to help achieve this is utilising off-site construction.
In this blog post, we will consider how ‘green’ modular construction is, including the sustainability benefits, waste management and recycling involved in modular construction.
Construction 2025: How Green Is Off-Site Construction?
The joint government and industry strategy, Construction 2025, outlines ambitious targets for the UK construction sector. This includes halving both construction-related emissions and project delivery times as well as reducing construction costs by a third. This is a difficult target to achieve, but off-site construction could be a huge driving force in making impactful environmental change within the construction sector. Currently, off-site construction is quite niche within the construction industry, accounting for about 7% of all construction output in the UK.
Off-site construction has the potential to help make UK construction as green as it can be, due to its environmentally conscious and stream-lined processes as well as the use of sustainably sourced materials. This method of construction also reduces room for error, reduces lead time and reduces the required budget.
Waste Generation And Management
It’s been recognised that the waste generated on traditional method construction sites is at least 10% of all materials delivered, due to damage, loss and over-ordering. Using offsite construction methods, overall waste generation is much reduced as sections of each building are produced to precise requirements, only using exactly what is needed for each unique project.
Modular construction can make your building project more sustainable. Investment in offsite construction by UK industry and sectors could help us on our way to halving construction emissions by providing the industry more opportunities to more efficiently build highly functional, energy efficient modular buildings, with much less waste.
Off-Site Construction Sustainability Benefits
Modular construction plays a major role in making the building sector more sustainable. There are many benefits of opting for off-site construction methods. These include:
- Reduced room for error
- Reduced lead time
- Reduced construction cost
- Reduction in material waste
- Reduction in life cycle of energy and carbon and increased structural lifetime
- Reduction in energy use for construction
- Reduced transport-related impact
- Support for the reduce, reuse and recycle initiative
- Reduced disruption to surrounding communities
- Increased adaptability to existing surroundings
On top of the benefits of off-site construction, one of our recent blog posts also explores the eco-friendly features of modular buildings themselves, in comparison to their traditional counterparts.
Reuse and Recycle: Opportunities To Hire
Everyone knows and appreciates that we should do our best to reduce, reuse and recycle.
In terms of reducing, modular construction can make the building sector more sustainable, using materials more efficiently and minimizing waste created. But reusing and recycling are also important benefits of opting for modular buildings. This is because it is possible to re-use existing stock as well as hiring a building, as opposed to purchasing it outright. Modular buildings can serve multiple purposes during their service life and can be deconstructed without generating demolition waste. They can easily be dismantled, relocated, and reused with minimal modification. As a result, modular construction allows for double waste reductions.
By opting to hire or utilise existing buildings, that are either repurposed to suit your requirements or designed specifically for you, you are automatically making an environmentally conscious decision.
Is Modular Construction Green?
It is fair to say that there are still improvements to be made as with any industry, meaning the 2025 strategy is an excellent actionable movement. However, it should be recognised that modular construction methods can definitely have positive impacts on a reduction in environmental impact compared to traditional building methods. Modular construction delivers versatile and high-performing buildings, which can be reused multiple times.
We believe that off-site modular construction not only cuts costs and construction times but also benefits people and our planet. We pride ourselves in the off-site techniques that we use to produce our modular buildings. If you would like to find out more about our modular buildings fill in our contact form or call our team on 01744 851958.
