UK construction groups call for green shake-up of public procurement

Some of the UK’s largest construction firms and contractors have called on the government to overhaul the procurement process for public building projects in order to slash carbon emissions.

Groups including Willmott Dixon, Mace and Morgan Sindall have written to construction minister Lee Rowley urging the government to factor environmental impact into procurement decisions on new-build and refurbishment projects, rather than focusing solely on cost.

Local and central government are significant clients for the construction industry. The signatories of the letter are collectively responsible for £18bn worth of public sector construction projects to be delivered within the next five years, including schools, offices and public buildings.

The government’s procurement process is focused on pushing down costs. “The overriding procurement policy requirement is that all public procurement must be based on value for money . . . This should be achieved through competition, unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary,” according to the government.

But it has been consulting on reforms to public procurement, which at about £300bn accounts for roughly a third of annual public expenditure, with a new regime set to be introduced in 2023 at the earliest.

With the contribution of buildings to climate change coming under increasing scrutiny, the construction companies suggest a new approach to procurement that accounts for environmental impact.

“Specifically, we believe that whole lifecycle carbon assessments should be mandatory for all new-build and refurbishment projects across the UK’s public sector, with design and build decisions based on the lifecycle carbon of the building, not purely on cost,” the companies wrote in the letter co-ordinated by public sector procurement authority Scape and seen by the Financial Times.

Lifecycle carbon refers to the total emissions of a building from the materials used in its construction to ongoing energy use and ultimately its demolition.

Incorporating carbon emissions into procurement decisions might mean higher upfront costs on projects, but the letter’s signatories argue that the operational savings from more sustainable buildings would offset those costs in six years on average.

Factoring in emissions would also help the government achieve its target of hitting net zero carbon emissions by 2050, with the built environment responsible for about 40 per cent of the nation’s total carbon footprint, according to the UK Green Building Council.

“Tackling carbon intensity across the public estate has become mission critical . . . Achieving this doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel — a lot of the immediate answers are hiding in plain sight” said Mark Robinson, chief executive of Scape, a built environment specialist. “We must work together as an industry to rethink our traditional approaches and ensure carbon is considered an integral part of our decision-making.”