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There's always the danger with discussions on sustainability that you end up discussing life, the universe and everything. It happened to me a few times this week. It can be slightly defeating as the detail and basics need to be right before you can start trying to change the world. But that shouldn't preclude a widening of discussions. Two disparate issues I considered with a couple of experts need much more thought - the law and IT.
On the legal side it's not that surprising that the issue is not that mature as yet, given that the profession tends to be led by its clients' wants and needs. I know that the organisation that produces the JCT contract, almost the Google of the construction legal world, is holding a meeting this month to see whether specific sustainability clauses can be inserted in their standard legal documents. It's early days but one could see clauses that oblige project team members to inform their client when they consider the whole life of the building is being compromised during construction. And on a more fundamental level the challenge will be for the industry as a whole to become more collaborative in achieving the significant demands that sustainability thrusts on it without reverting to type and ending up in adjudication or in the courts.
IT, or ICT, is another fascinating area, yet relatively untapped when referred directly to sustainability. There are clearly major minuses of our reliance on digital, not least the enormous energy use of the infrastructure, ie data centres. Yet the potential of going paperless and virtual is enormous. Think of the reduced paper consumption,of virtual meeting and of designing in 4 or 5D or introducing building information modelling. Paul Wilkinson, who's from BIW has been penning an IT construction blog called Extranet Evolution for some time and who I met this week, is doing some work in this area which will be invaluable. This is partly in collaboration with fellow blogger Martin.
And as ever with these conversations there are fascinating crossovers. Wilkinson is a passionate believer in the use of collaborative software which can significantly reduce construction disputes, saving time, money, meetings etc. He also mentioned the NEC contract being a contract that was also a fantastic management tool that could create a more efficient construction process (less paper, less overlap etc).
What's the most sustainable construction contract? One that leads to the most efficient project, or the least amount of disputes? That's probably a bit of a simplistic question - as ever it's probably more down to people, culture and processes. On the IT side can software providers create virtual carbon calculators? And can they work out how much CO2 is saved by using their systems? Just a few questions that sprung to my mind during and afterwards.
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