Clean, Green, Efficient Construction
It seems like there’s a new home-building show, often with unbearably punny names like “Flip or Flop” and “Good Bones”, that comes out every month. It’s no secret that people make plenty of money in real estate, from the agents to the sellers to the designers and the builders. But the green pretty much stops at the buck; there’s a long way to go to make building construction sustainable.
Of course, as with all things related to climate change, there is no singular silver bullet solution to develop a resource-efficient and low-carbon building industry. In this newsletter, we’ll focus on the construction element.
Digitalization of Construction
Although $1.3 trillion is spent on construction in the U.S., “the construction industry is among the least digitized and ripe for disruption”, writes . Without an awareness of the inputs and outputs of construction projects, i.e. the data, using resources efficiently throughout the industry is well-nigh impossible.
As Peter Drucker’s adage goes: “what gets measured gets managed”. In the largest construction projects, 130 million emails and 55 million documents are exchanged. It’s no wonder that right now 95.5% of data that actually gets captured in the construction industry goes unused.
By digitalizing, construction firms can allocate project resources more intelligently and efficiently, which can save on both wasted materials and wasted money. was spent on construction rework in the U.S. in 2018 and over half of that cost stems from a lack of good data and miscommunication.
But because profit is aligned with sustainability by using resources efficiently, the construction industry can utilize financial rationale for sweeping green innovation.
Sustainability is Good Business
A company called A.C.E. (Actual Cost Engineering) realizes the potential to reshape the construction industry and built a web-based platform for builders to reduce their material waste. Folks from all walks of the industry — trenching, plumbing, framing, electricity, roofing, etc. — can utilize this digital platform to see their data in real-time.
By using their phones to input labor hours, materials, and equipment into A.C.E.’s platform, contractors take the first step in understanding their costs and thereby managing their impact.
One A.C.E. user realized an increase in net profits of 13%, simply by tracking its data. And because the efficiency was optimized, this translates into a sustainable impact.
Construction is like manufacturing but instead of being located in one central location, each new project is like a new manufacturing plant. The larger the project, the more potential for capturing data and sustainable management.
Act on Climate
A friend of Cleantech Rising has started an online community for people like you who care about environmental sustainability called Collective.Energy. Discover, learn, connect — you can do it all there with others like us who want to help build a clean future!
Originally published at https://cleantechrising.com on September 1, 2020.
