Memorandum submitted by Constructing Excellence
(Waste 66)
ABOUT CONSTRUCTING
EXCELLENCE
Constructing Excellence is the single organisation
charged with driving the change agenda in construction, housing
and regeneration. We exist to improve industry performance in
order to produce a better built environment. We are a cross-sector,
cross-supply chain, member led organisation operating for the
good of industry and its stakeholders.
Our mission is to improve industry performance resulting
in a demonstrably better built environment.
Our formation came in the mid-nineties following
a wide spread recognition of the need for the construction industry
to improve the service it provided to its clients while also ensuring
future viability for the wide range of organisations that operated
in the industry.
In response to Sir Michael Latham's 1994 report
"Constructing the Team" and Sir John Egan's 1998 report
"Rethinking Construction" a number of cross industry
bodies were formed to drive change. These included:
Reading Construction Forum
Construction Best Practice Programme
Local Government Task Force
Construction Clients' Group
Significant progress has been made in driving
these initiatives into the practicing industry with many examples
of projects that have been run in accordance with the fundamental
principles. In order to streamline the effort involved, all the
above cross industry bodies have now been united as Constructing
Excellence to form a powerful, influential voice for improvement
in the built environment sector.
Following a cessation of government funding
in March 2007, Constructing Excellence is now a member-led and
predominantly member-funded organisation. In total we currently
have 265 members from the built environment sector who have prioritised
four key areas for improvement:
Integration and collaborative working
Leadership and people development
KEY POINTS
ON CONSTRUCTION
AND WASTE
Data/Performance Measurement
There is a real need for a consistent method
of measurement for site waste in order to enable proper reporting
and benchmarking of performance.
There are currently four methods of measuring waste:
| Volume of waste by £100,000 project spend
| Volume of waste by project floor area (m3)
|
| Tonnage by £100,000 project spend |
Tonnage of waste by project floor area (m3) |
| |
The most sensible option of these four to CE is volume by project
value.
However, there is then a disconnect with landfill tax which
is charged by weight.
Government as client could play key role by mandating one
methodology across all its procurement (40% of construction spend).
Targets
Target setting—all targets are currently voluntary.
Constructing Excellence's members welcome the half waste to landfill
target being delivered by WRAP. Constructing Excellence has promoted
the target to its members.
We recognise that there is a definite need for better data
across industry.
The target of ½W2L by 2012 is a sector based target
and so relies on leading edge companies achieving a better performance
than is targeted. Many leading edge companies are taking positive
steps to go beyond the targets as they see it as a differentiator
in the market.
There is also increasing recognition in the sector that actually
good waste management is an opportunity to save money.
However there is still a perception within some sectors of
the industry that waste management is a cost to bottom line and
where this is the case it is simply recharged to the client.
Government agencies
There is currently confusion over the differing roles of
the various government agencies that interact with the construction
sector and whose remit includes the improvement of environmental
and specifically waste performance.
We would not suggest that there should necessarily be any fewer
agencies—some degree of specialism is welcome. However,
what is lacking is a means by which industry can understand which
organisation will best meet their needs (for instance something
like a simple web portal).
We do welcome the links that have been created between WRAP
and Envirowise.
Constructing Excellence delivered the CoRE (Construction
Resource Efficiency) programme in London between September 2005
and March 2007. This LDA/BREW funded pilot brought together a
number of agencies (many of which are government funded) together
at a regional level in order to provide a simple means by which
the right environment al support for construction industry bodies
could be provided. Since the end of that programme, despite numerous
attempts, we have not able to pass the learning that was gathered
in managing over for others to use.
There is concern over the role of Business Link as the sole
broker of business support brokerage. There is a feeling that
they do not have the expertise required to be able to properly
support the construction industry on waste and other sustainability
issues and do not understand the improvement landscape.
We are sorry to see the cut in funding for organisations
such as WRAP who are doing some very good work with our sector
and the disappearance of the regional Business Resource Efficiency
and Waste Programme which was a very useful mechanism for funding
regional pilot programmes.
Best practice
There are some excellent sources of best practice for waste
in our industry.
The Constructing Excellence Demonstration Programme has worked
with 550 projects in 10 years. A growing number of these are concerned
with waste.
WRAP manages its own exemplar programme.
The Committee chairman may be interested to know about the
Cleveleys Coastal Defences project near his constituency which
is itself a waste exemplar.
http://demos.constructingexcellence.org.uk/knowledgebase/main.php?ProjectID=2800
Site Waste Management Plans
Our membership welcomes the Site Waste Management Plan legislation
although it is a bit too early to really determine the impact.
Initially competing tools to help companies produce SWMPs were
developed but these are now being aligned (eg WRAP and SMARTWaste).
This alignment can only have benefit for the industry.
The level of £300k is about right. Our suggestion during
the consultation was £250k which our membership felt would
be the point of cost neutrality.
Obviously the level at which point SWMPs are mandated means
that a large number of projects and companies are not affected
by the legislation. The unaffected projects will also tend to
be those for which it is more difficult to successfully segregate
waste on site because of their scale—smaller sites means
less space for different skips.
There is a huge problem that there has been little enforcement
of SWMPs to date. One of our members has stated that none of their
700 projects to date since the legislation came into force has
had any sort of enforcement visit.
There is a missed opportunity to increase client responsibility
for SWMPs, such as happened with the CDM (Construction Design
and Management) regulations in 2007. However, any increase in
client responsibility would need to be drafted in partnership
with clients. There would also be an implication for occasional
clients from any such increase who would not necessarily have
the expertise to properly fulfil any SWMP responsibilities.
Waste crime/fly-tipping
Constructing Excellence would welcome any increase in enforcement
action.
There is a perception, and this has been borne out from colleagues
in the Environment Agency, that it is mainly smaller constructors
that are guilty of waste crime. Unfortunately we are not aware
of any statistical evidence to back this up.
If the level of enforcement action were to increase, we would
like to see this go hand in hand with investment in positive opportunities
for micro-businesses to better manage their waste.
For example, Constructing Excellence is working with the
builders' merchant Wolseley to set up a take back scheme in East
Dulwich for its SME customers. There have been difficulties in
launching the scheme because of licensing issues, not only for
Wolseley but also for its customers who would need to invest in
waste carrying licences.
Strategy for Sustainable Construction
We would like to congratulate BERR on the Strategy for Sustainable
Construction. What is especially pleasing is that this a joint
industry and government strategy that has brought together a number
of government departments that have traditionally engaged with
the construction sector in a disparate way.
It is too early to assess the impact of the Strategy but there
are concerns that the Strategy has possibly not been promoted
as widely as we it should have been—especially to SMEs.
The Strategy was launched at same time as the Construction
Commitments which are best practice standards for the sector and
which signpost the Strategy itself. The Construction Clients'
Group (part of Constructing Excellence) has Client-ised the Commitments
and has included a client target to reduce waste.
Impact of market downturn
Anecdotally, when there is a market downturn, the first things
to be cut back on within projects budgets are investment in training
and sustainability.
However, there is a growing recognition in the construction sector
that waste is an opportunity not a cost. Unfortunately our sector
has a long tail and so there is still a perception amongst the
late majority and laggards that waste management is a cost to
the bottom line.
The year on year increase in landfill tax is welcome and
has focussed minds on being able to reduce waste.
The main danger will be the risk of an increase in waste
crime/fly-tipping as smaller companies will want to avoid landfill
charges.
Waste infrastructure
The change in designation of some landfill sites and the
closure of others, following the 2005 Landfill Directive, has
focussed minds in our industry somewhat. However, there are concerns
within our membership that there is currently insufficient coverage
for hazardous waste. The closest relevant landfill sites to North
West London for example are either Redhill in Surrey or Swindon.
There are also concerns from within our membership that there
is insufficient monitoring and enforcement of waste handlers and
management companies.
One vital message
Core to the work of Constructing Excellence is the promotion
of integration and collaborative working. The performance of the
Constructing Excellence Demonstration Projects has shown that
those projects that embrace collaborative working and have early
involvement of key supply chain partners are more likely to reduce
waste to landfill. As such, the successful management of waste
is as much about up front planning as it is about good on-site
practice and we would urge government to ensure that procurement
within central government continues to be collaborative even in
the current market downturn.
REVIEW OF
WASTE EXEMPTIONS—OVERVIEW
Constructing Excellence is a membership organisation which
represents 261 organisations from across the built environment
sector. Our membership are largely supportive of the proposals
put forward in the Consultation on Revised Waste Exemptions from
Environmental Permitting as they believe it will result in a simpler
process. They support the proposal to increase the use of exemptions
for low risk activities as they recognise the importance of low
risk activities being given greater freedom to operate without
unnecessary regulations. They feel that removing current exemptions
from higher risk activities allows for greater regulatory focus
on activities which are more likely to negatively impact on the
environment. However, they would like it to be noted that without
improved policing, there will continue to be a large number of
sites that require exemptions but do not register as is the case
under the present regulations.
General Comments
Our membership opposes the revisions to the activities requiring
exemption, and would like to highlight the much lower limits on
quantities of materials that can be used/stored. Constructing
Excellence is supportive of the Strategy for Sustainable Construction
target to reduce construction, demolition and excavation waste
to landfill by 50% by 2012 and feel that requiring projects to
obtain a permit for reuse of more than 500m3 of materials will
encourage the use of virgin materials rather than the reuse of
waste materials onsite. They feel that construction sites strive
to re-use waste material on site where possible and to utilise
materials legally imported to site. In some cases, specifications
and designs are changed throughout the construction process specifically
to maximise the re-use of suitable waste materials. The proposals
would make it more time effective and cost efficient for projects
to purchase virgin materials rather than apply for a permit to
re-use waste.
Our members are often required by regulators to apply for exemptions
for the storage of material that they have already declassified
as waste and have demonstrated that the material will be reused
as part of the finished scheme. For example, materials that can
be declassified as waste through the use of Codes of Practice
(such as Definition of waste: Development Industry Code of Contaminated
Land: Applications In Real Environments (CL:AIRE 978-1-905046-14-).
Where there is material that is declassified as waste and suitable
for reuse in line with these codes of practice, the suggestion
from our membership is that the regulations or accompanying guidance
are explicit on when a permit or exemption is required and when
it is not.
Proposals for Individual Exemptions Provided in the Draft Regulations
Many large construction sites will import topsoil and subsoil
(17 05 04), crushed glass (17 02 01), and crushed concrete (17
01 07) in large quantities for construction works, for use as
playing fields for schools, bedding under landscape areas, and
general fill under roads and floor slabs, and the construction
industry is being encouraged to use more. The Constructing Excellence
membership accept the case of the Impact Assessment that the term
"unlimited" has been open to abuse, they feel that the
limit of 500 tonnes is far too low if we want to increase the
use of these materials in the construction process. They feel
that many construction sites will not go to the expense and inconvenience
of obtaining a permit and will therefore revert back to virgin
aggregates if the process is too complicated. They feel that the
justification for the 500 tonnes per year limit has not been as
clearly articulated or based on empirical evidence from the construction
sector. There seems to have been a lack of research into the average
reasonable quantities of material that can be excavated and be
reasonably reused or the length of storage required for a typical
construction programme. In some instances, the storage of up to
50,000 cubic metres of soil has been stored under exemption and
has had positive environmental and economic benefits. With a desire
to minimise landfill, and maximise our reuse of uncontaminated
material, it seems that the impact assessment has listed only
a handful of negative incidents arising from the "unlimited"
exemption, but no review of the positive use of the exemption.
They propose that the limit for this low risk activity remains
unlimited.
If this is unacceptable, a suggestion was made of a limit of 5,000
tonnes per year which would tie in roughly with the existing regulatory
requirements, and would give a reasonable amount for the project
to work with before having to apply for a Permit. It would also
allow more waste to be deposited on larger contracts that will
generally run for longer. Where a permit will be required, this
needs to be a simplified process and would need to include the
following EWC codes: 17 02 01 Wood, 17 02 02 Glass.
Constructing Excellence
November 2008
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