WITH THE built environment contributing a significant amount of the UK’s total carbon footprint, there’s no question that the construction sector needs to act in order to ensure buildings meet their sustainable development goals. However, terminology and language have changed and have started to form a new set of ‘accounting principles’ which, to the uninitiated, govern material selection and choices for a project, as Iain Cox observes.
These carbon-focused ‘accounting principles’ will drive design choices, but the question is whether there’s a blind spot? If we consider the impact from damage or potentially catastrophic risks such as fire, are we accounting for them and, if so, where?
The built environment continues to evolve. This includes discussions on various materials, systems, layouts and, indeed, the reuse of buildings. There appears to be a growing tension between the demand for more sustainable and the impact on fire safety. You cannot stray too far into the world of fire safety without running into discussions on construction methods, photovoltaics and energy systems. In the background is a growing concern that what’s built today remains within the built environment for the next 30-to-40 years and remediation is not palatable. On look at what has happened with cladding is all that’s needed to understand why it may be unviable.
There’s also an ongoing discussion around the pace of innovation in this area, which doesn’t always include any consideration of the impact of fire up front or, perhaps more correctly, the wider impacts of change. These are all indicators of the reality of the challenge confronted when trying to balance multiple emerging needs with those of fire safety.
One step back
Taking a step back to look at the broader definition of sustainability in relation to environmental, social and commercial aspects unearths an overlap with fire safety. Fire exerts an impact in all of these areas, while working to minimise that impact through fire prevention and protection has always been seen to be strongly aligned with sustainability.
To date, rating systems for buildings, Government incentives and regulations have all changed through time to recognise new measures of sustainable performance that will drive market behaviour. The new forms of ‘accounting’ for the use of carbon are well aligned with these principles.
However, you only have to examine the consequences of a fire in buildings with such ratings and the concerns they generate in order to realise that these sustainability credentials don’t, in fact, account for the effects of fire.
There’s an argument to suggest that sustainability credentials should be separate to fire safety. One is elective, while the other is focused on regulation. However, to the person in the street that simply doesn’t wash. Consider the recent large fire at Luton Airport that destroyed a multi-storey car park containing over 1,000 vehicles and required extensive resources in terms of firefighters and appliances to bring it under control.
That car park is to be rebuilt. The cars are insured and will be replaced. The water used will be replenished. The materials from the demolished car park will be recycled as best they can, so too the scrapped cars. Stop and think about this situation, though, from a ‘carbon’ perspective.
We’re talking about tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon equivalent in those new cars and the materials for the new car park. An intelligent estimate would place the carbon component to be equivalent to four years’ worth of the greenhouse gas emissions the airport claimed in its running operations for 2023 or over 10% of the reported total carbon emissions for 2022.
Let this sink in. That one event has not just cost money, disruption and stress for so many individuals. It has exerted an impact on the carbon emissions for Luton Airport, and not a minor one. What will the 2023 sustainability report for the airport have in store? Will this event be taken into account, or will it be ignored as it’s not part of the ‘accounting principles’ for carbon? The episode didn’t make it into the accounting of greenhouse gas emissions associated with operations for the airport’s annual accounts to the end of December last year.
Focusing on the blind spot
Fundamentally, you could question the sustainability of the original build project when considering the impact of fire. How should the issue of fire be addressed and might fire be more of a factor in that measure of sustainability?
My fear is that this is a blind spot. We believe someone else is taking care of it, but really there is a gap. This blind spot is a little more challenging in that some of the decisions that may address it are actually further clouded by our eyeline being driven towards other matters.
Adding automatic sprinklers as a key part of the fire strategy may actually be viewed as a negative outcome based on the ‘accounting principles’. The additional carbon they accrue for a given project has no material benefit in the ‘accounting principles’. It’s simply viewed as a burden and one that could be removed with an accrued benefit. Longer term, this may not prove to be the best decision given the greater carbon use in the repair and replacement of properties that have been ravaged by fire.
It comes as no surprise to learn that the rebuilt Luton Airport car park will be protected by sprinkler systems. The impact of a fire in such a space is all too real now. That said, there’s still no certainty as to whether the blind spot is understood or, indeed, if the ‘accounting principles’ will promote the right thinking on the matter.
Fire safety is covered by the Building Regulations, which are currently under review. Isn’t it time that we also reviewed how we define sustainability and considered fire as part of the mix?
If we’re going to successfully ‘green’ our buildings, safety and sustainability simply must go hand-in-hand.
Iain Cox is Chair of the Business Sprinkler Alliance(www.business-sprinkler-alliance.org)
