THE BAHAMAS: THE BATTLE TO REBUILD AFTER HURRICAN DORIAN

As the Bahamas begins its long recovery process after Hurricane Dorian ravaged Grand Bahama and the Abaco Islands, the country faces an uphill battle rebuilding hotels and its tourism industry.

“The Bahamas is the most tourism-dependent country in the Caribbean and perhaps the world,” said Rick Newton of Resort Capital Partners, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based real estate investment advisory firm focused on the resort and hospitality market in the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Tourism accounts for about 50 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to the Bahamian government’s website, and most of the nation’s workers are employed in some aspect of tourism, as well.

The dependance on hotels and tourism makes the rebuilding process even more difficult for the Bahamas, after the hurricane made landfall over Labor Day weekend, bringing wind speeds of more than 180 miles per hour to two of the country’s largest population centers, Grand Bahama and the Abacos.

The hurricane, fortunately, missed the country’s capital city Nassau, along with Paradise Island, where the largest resorts and hotels are located, including Baha Mar and Atlantis, Paradise Island.

Frank Comito, CEO of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, said the hotels and resorts in Nassau were not impacted by the hurricane and never closed.

The Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama have a much different hotel landscape than Nassau.

“They have a large vacation home business. A lot of it is rental and timeshares and lot of single-family, high-end homes in the Abacos,” Comito said.

The Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama have a total of about 2,250 hotel rooms, which equates to 15 percent of the total hotel inventory in the country, according to Newton.

Recently the Bahamas has experienced a boom in its hotel industry, growing at a much faster rate than the rest of the Carribean.

Hotel occupancy jumped 19 percent in the first half of this year, compared to the same period of the previous year, according to the hotel-data firm STR. Meanwhile, revenue per available room was up 27 percent to $231 in the first half of this year.

The sizable upswing was due to the completion in 2018 of Baha Mar, a 2,300-room resort and casino.

Experts say that as repair and construction companies start heading to the affected islands in the Bahamas, hotels in Nassau and other nearby areas could see a bump in revenue and occupancy as repair workers need a place to stay.

After Hurricane Irma damaged parts of the Florida Keys in September 2017, the Miami region saw double-digit increases in occupancy, revenue and demand. In October 2017, Miami area hotel occupancy was at 74.5 percent, up 11.2 percent from the same month of the previous year.

Rebuilding in the affected areas in the Bahamas, however, is likely much more challenging than after a hurricane in the Keys or South Florida. In the Bahamas, there are only a few institutionally owned properties in Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama that can afford to make repairs and rebuild dilapidated hotels, according to Newton.

Similarly, the Bahamas can’t tap into federal resources to rebuild infrastructure, like Puerto Rico did after hurricanes Irma and Maria. Following the hurricanes, Puerto Rico quickly sought to take advantage of the Opportunity Zones program.

The federal program designated almost the entire territory of Puerto Rico as an Opportunity Zone, which means that investors who build new real estate projects or redevelop an existing property could get substantial tax breaks. The Island’s governor said that the program could bring more than $600 million in new investment to Puerto Rico, and some investors are already taking advantage of this tax benefit.

In the Bahamas, however, it’s hard to see this same scenario playing out, according to Newton.

Real Estate Investment Trusts will likely be hesitant to put money into the Bahamas, because there is less of an exit strategy than putting the money into the United States, he said. So the bigger question is who will pay to rebuild properties that are torn down?

”Where will the capital come from?” he asked. “It’s not coming from insurance companies. I hope it’s private capital.”

Source: The Real Deal

/0 Comments/by

How Tiny Beetles can help with plastic waste

A new study published in the journal ‘Nature Communications Chemistry’ has discovered that the structure of ultra-white beetle’s scales could be used in the making of bright-white sustainable paint using recycled plastic waste.

White Beetles might be tiny in their size but their structure could hold the key to making bright-white sustainable paint

White Beetles might be tiny in their size but their structure could hold the key to making bright-white sustainable paint.

This paint not only has a lower carbon footprint but helps in tacking the challenge of recycling single-use plastics.

A new study published in the journal ‘Nature Communications Chemistry’ has discovered that the structure of ultra-white beetle’s scales could be used in the making of bright-white sustainable paint using recycled plastic waste.

Cyphochilus beetle scales are one of the brightest whites in nature and their ultra-white appearance is created by the nanostructure in their tiny scales, as opposed to the use of pigment or dyes.

Experts now are able to recreate and improve this structure in the lab using low-cost materials – via a technique that could be used as a sustainable alternative to titanium dioxide in white paint.

“In the natural world, whiteness is usually created by a foamy, Swiss cheese-like structure made of a solid interconnected network and air,” said lead author, Dr. Andrew Parnell, University of Sheffield’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.

“Having understood these structures we were able to take plastic and structure it in the same way. Ideally, we could recycle plastic waste that would normally be burnt or sent to landfill, structure it just like the beetle scale and then use it to make super white paint,” the researcher added.

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 4)

Not only this paint would have a much lower carbon footprint but help in tackling the challenge of recycling single-use plastics.

The findings show that the foamy structure of the beetles’ scales had the right proportion of empty spaces, which optimise the scattering of light – creating the ultra-white colouring.

Conventional white paint contains nanoparticles of titanium dioxide, which scatter light very strongly. However, the use of titanium dioxide is harmful to the environment as it contributes to nearly 75 per cent of the carbon footprint of each tin of paint that is produced.

Researchers in this study used a technique called X-ray tomography, which is similar to a CT scan but on a minuscule scale. The scientists used the X-ray imaging facilities at the instrument ID16B at the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France.

The intense X-ray source at the ESRF meant whole intact scales could be measured, which was pivotal to understanding them and modelling how they scatter light.

Source: Asian News International

 

/0 Comments/by

Sky Pool – Take a dip in 2020

The worlds first amazing Sky Pool is due to arrive in London in Summer 2020.

Over the past year teams of architects, engineers and consultants have been busy testing and developing the pool structure in its factory in Colorado. The innovative pool is pushing boundaries in the capability of construction and engineering and will be a feat of engineering, never seen before. It is an intricate and challenging process for which we have some of the best minds in the world working together to accomplish.

The stunning outdoor pool will link two residential buildings at the 10th storey – a world first – and allow residents to swim from one building to the next. The sky deck at the top of the two buildings incorporates a spa, summer bar and Orangery for residents to relax and take in the views of London icons which include the Houses of Parliament, London Eye and new US Embassy located next door. The pool is entirely transparent, 25m long, 5m wide and 3m deep with a water depth of 1.2m. Designed by Arup Associates, with specialist input from Eckersley O’Callaghan and aquarium designers Reynolds, the experience is intended to be more akin to an aquarium than a pool.

The acrylic is now in its final phase of construction and is currently undergoing its final testing and treatments before it will be prepared for shipping to the UK, itself a lengthy and complex process.

The pool is expected to arrive at Embassy Gardens next Summer, when this vision becomes a reality. We will then need to lift and secure the structure in place and complete works on the Sky Deck but the pool will be open next Summer.

 About Embassy Gardens:

Embassy Gardens will see the creation of nearly 2,000 new homes, stunning landscaped gardens, vibrant new bars and restaurants providing a variety of al fresco spaces and 130,000 ft sq. of shopping space. Phase two is being delivered by EcoWorld Ballymore and phase one, which is now complete and occupied, was delivered by Ballymore Group. Phase 3, which is also under construction, includes One Embassy Gardens, the development’s flagship commercial building, with space pre-let to Penguin Random House UK and DK Publishing, and EG:HQ, a 13-storey, 217,000 sq. ft office space, which was recently submitted for planning.

The apartments at Embassy Gardens are a 10-minute walk from Vauxhall station and connectivity will be further improved with the forthcoming extension of the Northern Line, creating two new stations at Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station. Future home to the Sky Pool, Embassy Gardens is a landmark development which will establish a totally new community within central London, wrapped around the new US Embassy.

 

 

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 4)

/0 Comments/by

STA slams inaccurate government solar deployment figures

Yesterday (29 August 2019), the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published its latest figures on solar PV deployment in the UK.  The STA is again questioning the accuracy of these figures, and calling on BEIS to implement the recommendations of the Energy Data Taskforce which includes introducing a generation asset registration system as this is the only approach that will enable truly accurate monitoring of solar PV and battery storage deployment.

STA Chief Executive Chris Hewett said; “It is time for BEIS to either get its house in order or stop publishing these meaningless statistics which clearly do not capture the full picture of UK PV deployment.

 

We are particularly concerned with the large-scale commercial and industrial rooftop PV market, as these systems are too large to be captured by MCS registration. Our members are seeing significant growth across this space, from supermarket rooftops to football stadiums, and the lack of visibility of this capacity is holding back energy system innovation and decarbonisation.

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 4)

As the Energy Data Taskforce stated in their report earlier this year, an estimated 10% of assets are not visible to the electricity system operator today. How will we know if we are on track to reach Net Zero if the government cannot even be certain of what is connected to the grid? This clearly demonstrates the urgent need for a coordinated asset registration strategy, and a centralised energy data catalogue that is accessible to industry. We reiterate our call upon government and respective agencies to swiftly implement the recommendations of the Energy Data Taskforce.

 

Timely, detailed and accurate market data for the entirety of the small-scale renewable electricity and energy storage industry is critical for:

 

  • Ensuring safe, efficient and cost-effective grid operation and electricity supply
  • Providing an accurate picture of the market landscape to drive investment and new business models
  • Providing a robust evidence base for research, innovation and policy-making

 

Prior to summer recess, a number of MPs, including SNP Energy Spokesperson Drew Hendry, queried the accuracy of BEIS’ solar deployment figures through written questions to the Secretary of State at the time.

 

Solar Trade Association:

/0 Comments/by

The cooler we need it, the hotter it gets

On a regular day, New York City demands around 10,000MW every second; during a heatwave, that figure can exceed 13,000MW. “Do the math, whatever that gap is, is the AC,” explains Michael Clendenin, a spokesman for Con Edison, the company that supplies more than 10 million people in the New York area with electricity. The combination of high demand and extreme temperature can cause parts of the system to overheat and fail, leading to blackouts. In 2006, equipment failure left 175,000 people in Queens without power for a week, during a heatwave that killed 40 people.

This year, by the evening of Sunday 21 July, with temperatures above 36C (97F) and demand at more than 12,000MW every second, Con Edison cut power to 50,000 customers in Brooklyn and Queens for 24 hours, afraid that parts of the nearby grid were close to collapse, which could have left hundreds of thousands of people without power for days. The state had to send in police to help residents, and Con Edison crews dispensed dry ice for people to cool their homes.

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 4)

As the world gets hotter, scenes like these will become increasingly common. Buying an air conditioner is perhaps the most popular individual response to climate change, and air conditioners are almost uniquely power-hungry appliances: a small unit cooling a single room, on average, consumes more power than running four fridges, while a central unit cooling an average house uses more power than 15. “Last year in Beijing, during a heatwave, 50% of the power capacity was going to air conditioning,” says John Dulac, an analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA). “These are ‘oh shit’ moments.”

There are just over 1bn single-room air conditioning units in the world right now – about one for every seven people on earth. Numerous reports have projected that by 2050 there are likely to be more than 4.5bn, making them as ubiquitous as the mobile phone is today. The US already uses as much electricity for air conditioning each year as the UK uses in total. The IEA projects that as the rest of the world reaches similar levels, air conditioning will use about 13% of all electricity worldwide, and produce 2bn tonnes of CO2 a year – about the same amount as India, the world’s third-largest emitter, produces today.

All of these reports note the awful irony of this feedback loop: warmer temperatures lead to more air conditioning; more air conditioning leads to warmer temperatures. The problem posed by air conditioning resembles, in miniature, the problem we face in tackling the climate crisis. The solutions that we reach for most easily only bind us closer to the original problem.

Source: The Guardian – read in full

This presents a very real challenge to the construction industry, a challenge that can no longer be viewed as something for the future, climate change is indicating that the challenge must be met now. However the past may hold clues to the way we approach future construction. Many of the ancient civilizations thrived in lands that experienced very high daily temperatures, without electricity they found ways to utilize the natural resources to keep the heat at bay. Looking at these methods and marrying them to our technological advances may be the first steps to keeping us cool, and stepping away from the spiral of cooler means hotter.

Marthan Henriques writing for ‘BBC Future’ has looked in depth at these and other alternative cooling methods from modern day roof gardens to evaporative cooling, practiced by Spanish farm labourers. It also examines ground source cooling and windcatchers. The full article can be read by following this link: Read Marthan’s article here

 

 

/0 Comments/by

Is ‘Ocean Cleanup’ a waste of Energy?

We read this article on Dezeen, it seems to have split the environmentalists in terms of for and against, whilst the general tone of the article seems to focus on negative aspects, some of their reader responses were more positive. We wondered what Buildingspecifier readers viewpoint was on the subject.

Dutch non-profit The Ocean Cleanup plans to burn some of the plastic it collects from the Pacific Ocean, Dezeen has learned. Designers and environmentalists say the move “makes no sense”.

The organisation told Dezeen that most of the plastic it harvests with its floating rigs will be recycled, with the remainder burned in waste-to-power plants.

“Not all plastics collected will be recyclable to new products, but the majority will,” said a spokesperson for The Ocean Cleanup.

“The particles collected that are not fit to be turned into new products will be thermally recycled into energy,” the spokesperson said. “We aim to send nothing to landfill.”

The spokesperson did not give any other details of where or how the ocean plastic it collects would be recycled or burned.

Thermal recycling involves burning waste in special facilities, similar to the Bjarke Ingels-designed Amager Bakke waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen, to generate electricity.

However there are concerns over the emissions from such facilities, which can potentially release toxins into the atmosphere as well as carbon dioxide.

A report on plastic pollution by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) published earlier this year said that incinerating plastic waste “releases toxic substances including heavy metals such as lead and mercury, acid gases and particulate matter.”

“Managing plastic waste, mostly via incineration, contributed about 16 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2015,” the report said.

Designers and recycling experts expressed concern at The Ocean Cleanup’s plans to burn waste.

Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, founder of recycling network Precious Plastic, said he admired The Ocean Cleanup but was “not a big fan of burning plastic for energy”.

“This seems like such a waste of material to me,” said Hakkens. “It took so much effort to turn that old fossil oil into plastic. We can always burn, but we can do more before we hit that last resort.”

“It is just a strategy that displaces trash with smaller molecules that float around in the air,” said architect Arthur Huang.

“We’re not a fan of burning,” said Cyrill Gutsch, founder of Parley for the Oceans. “Is it not what at this point we feel is recommended.” Cristina Gabetti described the project as “a dream that seduced many”

Italian environmental journalist Cristina Gabetti said The Ocean Cleanup’s claim that the majority of the plastic would be recycled sounded “very optimistic”.

“Where will they bring the collected plastic waste to?” she asked. “Do they have agreements with recycling plants? Have they done an assessment of the environmental impact of transport and treatment of the plastic?”

She added: “Waste-to-energy is a common practice in some states, but again the type of facility makes the difference.”

“Burning plastic collected from the ocean helps as it removes material that could break down into micro plastics, but if the goal is [reducing] carbon emissions then burning it makes no sense,” added architect Arthur Mamou-Mani, who is exploring the use of compostable bioplastics to replace fossil-fuel plastics.

“Burning plastic for energy is not dissimilar to burning oil, but creates additional carbon emissions to the ones generated by creating the plastics in the first place,” he continued.

Founded in 2013 by Dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat at the very young age of 20, the Ocean Cleanup says it plans to remove 90 per cent of plastic waste from the world’s oceans using fleets of 600-metre-long floating rigs.

The unmanned devices are designed to scoop up plastic as they float around the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where billions of plastic particles have accumulated. Ships will arrive periodically to take the waste ashore.

However there are doubts over the feasibility of the operation, since much of the plastic in the garbage patch has broken down to the size of confetti, with most of it found below the surface and in low concentrations.

As well as being difficult to collect, this plastic is difficult and expensive to recycle. In an interview with Dezeen published earlier this month, Parley for the Oceans’ Gutsch said that recycled plastic from the ocean can cost eight to ten times more than virgin plastic, and was often contaminated.

“It works like a sponge and it absorbs a lot of other chemicals,” Gutsch said. “So in a treatment process, you want to be very careful. You can compact them into building blocks or something like that, but that’s actually downcycling.”

In the interview Gutsch, whose organisation turns marine plastic waste into desirable goods under the Ocean Plastic brand, said he did not think it was possible to rid the oceans of plastic. Instead, he called for the development of new materials to replace plastic.

“What can this plastic be recycled into?” said Arthur Huang. “I think they have no clue. Of course it can be recycled into products and building materials, but first you have to identify the materials, mix them and sort them.”

Many experts are sceptical of The Ocean Cleanup’s approach. Speaking to Dezeen earlier this year Huang said The Ocean Cleanup “cannot be a plausible solution” to cleaning up the oceans while Gabetti described it as  “a dream that seduced many people”.

The Ocean Cleanup’s first sea-trial was abandoned late last year after the U-shaped plastic tube fractured.

Engineers later discovered that the rig was moving more slowly than the plastic it was trying to collect, causing waste it had collected to float back into the sea.

The mission was restarted in June following modifications to the rig. In a blog post published on 16 August, Boyan Slat announced that the organisation had solved the speed problem by rotating the rig 180 degrees and slowing it down with a parachute, so that plastic is pushed into the system by wind and waves.

However the rig requires further modifications to ensure that all floating plastic is captured. “This is all good news and a key step in the right direction; however, we are not at proven technology status just yet,” Slat wrote.

CIEL’s report, Plastic & Climate: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, was published in May this year. It found that producing and incinerating plastic “will add more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere – equal to the emissions from 189 five-hundred-megawatt coal power plants” in 2019.

Pollution from burning plastic at waste-to-energy plants “can enter air, water, and soil causing both direct and indirect health risks for workers and nearby communities,” the report found.

An estimated 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans each year. Circular-economy charity the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans.

 

Source: Dezeen

 

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 4)

 

/0 Comments/by

Flood Risks – Only 3% of Britains Rivers Free of Artificial Barriers

Existing river barrier databases considerably underestimate the number of barriers – including dams – that could be causing issues in areas of the UK, expert Sergio Vallesi from Durham University Business School warns in the wake of events like Whaley Bridge, where a nearby dam at risk of collapse led to mass evacuation.

Vallesi is researching how barriers like dams have disrupted the water’s natural flow and are risking the peaceful lives of neighbouring communities.

“Most people don’t realise only 3% of rivers in the UK are free-flowing,” says Vallesi.

“In fact, the majority of rivers and streams in Europe are fragmented – only a small portion are free of artificial barriers – and while the environmental and socio-economic impacts of large dams on European rivers has been widely researched, what is less studied is the collective impact of the thousands of artificial barriers, including large and small dams, weirs, fords, sluices and culverts, resulting in systematic river fragmentation and loss of connectivity.”

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 4)

This extensive fragmentation of rivers through artificial barriers has a considerable impact on the local area, mainly negative for the communities that live in flood plains.

Vallesi and fellow researchers are now developing methods and tools to access cost and benefits of river infrastructures, to determine the potential successes and drawbacks from restoring connectivity in European rivers and streams.

Their approach would also allow communities to screen if a barrier is having an impact – or going to have an impact – in that area.

If successful, it will help decision makers to develop barrier adaptation strategies, implement migration measures, and monitor the success of river restoration projects that remove artificial barriers.

Further results will be published from the researchers at Durham University Business School in a report from AMBER (Adaptive Management of Barriers in European Rivers), an EU funded £6.2 million project.

 

 

For more information or to speak to Sergio Vallesi, contact Stephanie Mullins at BlueSky PR on smullins@bluesky-pr.com or call +44 (0)1582 790 706.

/0 Comments/by

Fracking – The Fears and Hopefully the Facts

People living in Formby are worried about the ‘health of the community’ as plans for fracking just a mile away moved another step forward.

Energy company Aurora have submitted plans to frack for shale gas at Great Altcar, a mile from Formby and a few miles from Ainsdale, Hightown and Lydiate.

Fracking, also known as hydraulic fracturing, has been the focus of considerable controversy in the past 12 months, after a number of earthquakes around the UK’s only active site, near Blackpool.

If approved, fracking will go ahead just outside of Formby

Many people claim as well as the tremor risks, the technique can cause air, noise and groundwater pollution.

Aurora is currently seeking permission to construct a fracking site in West Lancashire – just 900 metres from the historic Formby Oilfield.

 

THE GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

 

The Royal Society review of hydraulic fracturing

Public Health England has assessed the risk to human health of extracting shale gas. They evaluated available evidence on issues including air quality, radon gas, naturally occurring radioactive materials, water contamination and waste water. They concluded that “the risks to public health from exposure to emissions from shale gas extraction are low if operations are properly run and regulated.”

 

Public Health England report

In September 2013 Professor David MacKay (the then Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Chief Scientist) and Dr Timothy Stone wrote a report on potential greenhouse gas emissions from UK produced shale gas. They concluded that the overall effect of UK shale gas production on national emissions is likely, with the right safeguards, to be relatively small. Indeed emissions from the production and transport of UK shale gas would be comparable to imported Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), and much lower than coal, when both are used to generate electricity.

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 04)

Report on potential greenhouse gas emissions from UK produced shale gas

BEIS factsheet 2: Shale gas and climate change

BEIS currently grant-funds a research consortium led by the British Geological Survey to deliver a baseline environmental monitoring programme in and around sites in the Fylde (Lancashire) and Kirby Misperton (North Yorkshire), where 2 exploration shale sites are based. The researchers are gathering data on features including water and air quality, seismicity and ground motion. Data gathering began in the Fylde in January 2015 and in Kirby Misperton in August 2015.

This monitoring will gather data for the environmental baseline in the areas prior to any hydraulic fracturing processes. Future shale gas projects’ data can be checked against these baseline data. This allows any significant changes to be flagged for further scrutiny. The investigations are independent of any monitoring carried out by the industry or the regulators, and information collected is freely available to the public.

 

/0 Comments/by

From Glass to Concrete – and no waste

Thanks to scientists based in South Yorkshire and 27 European partners working together on a £9million project, glass is helping to build a new highway to sustainability.

Researchers at Glass Technology Services, and its sister company British Glass which represents the UK’s £1.6bn glass manufacturing sector, are leading on the glass element of a project which aims to work out ways to completely recycle – or close the loop – on all types of waste from the construction industry including glass, wood, ceramics, plastic and rubber.

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 4)

Together with the construction company Acciona and other industry and research partners in Spain (Tecnalia), Turkey (TCMA) and Sweden (RISE CBI), they have shown that glass construction waste can be transformed into valuable reusable raw materials. One application blends finely ground waste glass – which cannot be reused in a glass furnace – with other industrial waste to produce an ‘eco cement’.

Eco cement has been used to build roads and made into pre-cast concrete blocks and other shapes for building homes and roads.

Using waste materials such as the finely ground glass has multiple benefits, improving the performance of the cement, reducing the energy requirements of cement manufacturing, and preventing waste materials from ending up in landfill. Currently the EU produces 1.5million tonnes of architectural glass waste annually. Less than a third is recycled: the rest either goes to landfill or is used as backfill on construction sites.

Chris Holcroft, senior technologist and technology development lead for Glass Technology Services, said: “This is an exciting project with a huge amount of potential for sustainable building. The more glass we can save from landfill the better it is for the environment.”

In this project Glass Technology Services specialised in early work looking at the available materials, while the partner teams then successfully demonstrated the new cement production in a laboratory, in a pilot study, and on an industrial scale. The finished products are now being tested at a number of case study sites.

This activity is part of the FISSAC project funded by the EU’s H2020 programme. FISSAC stands for  ‘Fostering Industrial Symbiosis For a Sustainable Resource Intensive Industry Across the Extended Construction Value Chain’.

FISSAC, a group of stakeholders at all levels of the construction and demolition value chain, is developing a pioneering approach to bringing industries to work together to avoid waste – known as industrial symbiosis. Glass Technology Services and British Glass are key members of FISSAC.

FISSAC is currently building a software tool which shows where waste construction material is available, what type, and the environmental impact of possible ways of reusing it. The database will help cut costs for manufacturers, support them in complying with environmental regulations, encourage cross-sector resource efficiency, and help the industry with cleaner production strategies.

 

Glass Technology Services Website

British Glass Website

 

 

 

/0 Comments/by

The Immigration wrangle – is Boris clouding the skills shortage issue

The topic of immigration has dominated the Brexit discussion so far and, as an industry which relies so heavily on EU labour, the construction sector is feeling the pressure

The UK is still locked into negotiations with the EU and the arrival of a new prime minister has magnified the concerns of those in the sector. Keen to establish himself and his policies as he takes up his new position, Boris Johnson has backtracked on some of Theresa May’s more strict post-Brexit immigration plans.

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 4)

The UK is on the brink of a brave new world when it comes to immigration, and whilst Johnson has scrapped May’s pledge to slash immigration numbers to tens of thousands and instead looks to introduce a points-based system, his approach is casting doubts over the government’s existing immigration bill.

Immigration restrictions post-Brexit

Whilst on the face of it, Johnson’s plans are more liberal than May’s, the devil really is in the detail when it comes to weighing up the UKs post-2021 options. What is clear, however, is that the new prime minister plans to impose some new immigration restrictions post-Brexit, which could have potentially devastating consequences for the UK, particularly London, as its economy is so reliant on free movement. So, until the full scope of the plans are unveiled, the construction industry will be unable to effectively plan for its future.

Whilst a number of sectors could be hit hard by new restrictions on EU migrant labour, the construction industry, which is already in the midst of an extended skills shortage, needs to prepare for impact. With high living costs (in London, in particular) and a falling pound, the pull to the UK is not as strong as it once was for EU workers. Putting hurdles in place to reduce free movement to the UK is only going to turn the skills shortage into potential skills gulf within the industry.

For a country with many ambitious construction projects underway, a lack of available workers could prove highly detrimental to the UK’s development plans. The Construction Industry Training Board estimates that the sector will need to recruit and train 31,600 workers every year for the next three years to keep up with demand. But the number of apprentices entering into construction falls very significantly short of this, meaning urgent action needs to be taken. However, it appears that the industry is trailing behind.

Worker retention in construction

To ensure that talent is preserved, a dialogue needs to begin around the urgency of worker retention. As it stands, Boris Johnson appears to be supporting an amnesty for the approximate 500,000 existing migrants without documentation in the UK. In addition to this, the Migration Advisory Committee is currently reviewing (in a 12-month-long process) the £30,000 salary threshold required to qualify as a ‘skilled worker’, the current suggestion being to lower it to £21,000. Further proposals include offering a fast-track system of providing visas to people with the skills needed to bridge the UK skills gap.

Whilst these policies seem more liberal on the surface, there has been talk that the Prime Minister is keen to adopt an Australian-style points-based system, selecting only the most skilled migrant workers.  Such a system would undoubtedly contribute towards UK employment issues, with many businesses, particularly those operating in the construction sector, struggling to recruit and retain their core workforce.

Recent industry reports have suggested that 21% of construction companies have laid off staff since the previous quarter, becoming increasingly reliant on subcontractors to carry out work. If this continues, there are worries that build quality across the UK could suffer as a result of this. To help mitigate this, construction companies must ensure that they undertake the appropriate due diligence in respect of their subcontract supply chain and look to establish good working relationships with reputable subcontractors, to avoid issues with quality control.

The Federation of Master Builders has also recently warned that a no-deal Brexit ‘could lead to reputation-damaging mistakes’, also stating that ‘the construction industry has always used a significant proportion of subbies [sic] but the fact that direct employment is decreasing, points to Brexit nerves among construction bosses.’

Brexit and the housing crisis

The wider impact on the construction industry is likely to worsen the current housing crisis. For example, the Government’s target to build 300,000 homes a year would become even more difficult with a reduced workforce.

Such ambitious targets would prove nigh on impossible to achieve without the development of innovative industry methods and technology, for example, investing in modern methods of construction. This would mean less pressure on construction companies to hire so many staff and whilst the UK is still figuring out how the new immigration regime will function, this could go some way to help in mitigating the impact of the skills shortage – at least in the context of residential development. As well as people, a restriction on free movement of goods post-Brexit could also put pressure on construction companies.

Preparing for a post-Brexit world

If they haven’t already done so, taking stock now and reviewing goods procurement strategies is key for construction companies. By assessing how reliant the business is on materials from the EU, they can then begin to forecast and where prudent to do so, take measures to stockpile, avoiding disruption to projects from limits on supply. Some larger companies have already started buying up their own plant-making facilities in view of Brexit and the subsequent changes to movement of goods and services that will follow. Regardless of business size, forecasting is key, as well as ensuring that necessary funds are in place to facilitate stockpiling.

Businesses which have not taken steps to prepare for the post-Brexit world should take advantage of the extension and start planning – and acting – now. It is vital for employers in the construction sector to be aware of the options available to them for sourcing and protecting talent, as well as materials.

As the new prime minister, Boris Johnson must recognise the positive impact that immigration and freedom of movement has on the UK and establish a clear position as soon as possible. It is crucial that he takes steps to ensure that the UK can get on with business as usual, pre and post-Brexit. Confident decision making is needed to free the UK from its current political deadlock so that the construction industry can continue to thrive, now and in the future.

 

Kate Onions

 

Source: PBC Today

 

 

/0 Comments/by