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Sustainable construction? A solution? Start with procurement and as the very first steps introduce legal penalties for suicide bidding and move away from the attitude of spending budgets just because they are there.

When projects get value engineered to the bone because a contractor cannot deliver the contract even such processes as BREEAM can become stretched to the point of being meaningless. Holes in specification get taken advantage of and risk shortening the life span of the building (just think fixings here as a prime example). Even if the building still performs on completion if things have to be replaced then that carries a huge carbon cost (even when paid for by someone’s insurance).

A really great carbon saving will be to build building we need not just those there are budgets for (that have to be spent within certain timescales) and those we build we must give time to design fully for the intended use, and lets define that use rather than opting for the soft option of getting out of developing a real brief by saying the building is flexible/adaptable etc.