Newsome was speaking at the Construction Climate Challenge (CCC) event recently, a one-day forum hosted by Volvo Construction Equipment and supported by Volvo Trucks.
More than 100 delegates from organisations such as Environment Agency, HM Treasury, National Grid, Highways England, HS2 and Crossrail heard Newsome report that Anglia Water has cut carbon and costs: “Between 2010 and 2015 at Anglian Water we reduced embodied carbon by 45%, which gave us a cost saving of 23%,” he said.
Anglian Water is now looking at greater use of cem-free (zero cement) concrete as well as more off-site construction, which not only reduces carbon, but also dramatically cuts time on site, and therefore cost. “We expect to halve the amount of time we spend on-site at our construction projects going forwards,” he said.
“Success in dealing with carbon is 50% belief and 50% belligerence,” he added. “To this end, we have now set ourselves a target to reduce our carbon by 50% by 2030, although on reflection we should perhaps even have pushed for 70%.”
Keynote speaker was Mike Putnam, chair of the Green Construction Board and president and CEO of Skanska UK, who told delegates that the construction industry has not been as proactive as others when it comes to addressing carbon and the associated consequences, but the CCC hopes to change this.
Bill Law, senior VP for corporate communications at Volvo Construction Equipment said: “The time has now come for us to lead, fit in or get out of the way. The consequences of inaction don’t bear thinking about.”