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i can hear charlotte talking! help!

i mean i CANT hear

Feel free get in touch with us: kramolisch@natureplus.org, info about natureplus also here: https://www.natureplus.org/

https://asbp.org.uk/asbp-awards-2022

Built by Nature launch, 12 UK/1pm CEST - https://asbp.org.uk/events/virtual-launch-built-by-nature

Where do these figures for the split between operation and embodied come from...reference? Ta

Check out the product database https://www.baubook.at/natureplus/?SW=32&lng=2. As just mentioned: You find more than 500 certified products. These products provide without any doubt (thanks to the independent eco-label assessment) a climate-friendly alternative. Low carbon footprint or even even with carbon storage benefit.

Regarding the webinar on Tuesday “carbon capture and storage for free”, Simon just mentioned: If you are interested in the recordings of this first webinar you can register for the last webinar of our series and get access to all recordings directly. This would be our special offer for the delegates of today. Info and direct registration link you find here: https://www.eventbrite.de/e/carbon-neutral-by-2050-the-roadmap-of-the-austrian-cement-industry-tickets-168755996729?aff=ebdsoporgprofile.

Yes, webinar no. three is on 21 October! Thanks Simon!

One fuel-switching trial already successful https://mineralproducts.org/News-CEO-Blog/2021/release31.aspx

Jae asked me where the split of operations//embodied comes from. https://www.worldgbc.org/embodied-carbon

What is the embodied carbon of recycled concrete? Percentage reduction over virgin material

Thanks Elaine - lots of great resources to follow up on. I am curious about the negative numbers at End Of Life from concrete EPDs. I think you mentioned that there is a spike in carbonation at this point - is this outweighing the carbon to dismantle, transport away form site and crush concrete?

Hi Elaine, thanks for a great presentation. Is there a lack of availability of renewable cement alternatives - it's my understanding that GGBS & PFA are fossil fuel process byproducts which will surely be phased out?

Elaine: Can you explain difference between Carbonation of concrete (bad?) and Carbon sequestration into surfaces (Good?)

Elaine: AAR Alakali

thanks Wendy... re negative numbers at end of life, in the epds you can see that yes, carbonation outweighs the other emmissions at those stages. i didn't mention that for some concrete products, e.g block work, the carbonation actually happened much earlier in the life cycle

Elaine: can you explain difference between AAR Alkali Aggregate Reaction (Bad) Alkali Activated Cementitious Materials (Good?)

Elaine: StEng. Standard Specs permit low carbon cements but do they specify it or are we reliant on BREEAM to drive it and concrete supplied to deliver it whether we know it or not?

for UK produced structural steel what is average % recycled content? appreciate for Celsa produced rebar theirs contains circa 98% recycled content

Hi Elaine a couple questions, when will the report/guidance for multi-component cements going to be published? Ideally we reuse our existing buildings but in the case of demolition, how can we encourage demolition contractors to leave the demolish concrete exposed to increase the carbonation (CO2 uptake) before it is recycled?

thanks Joe, regarding availability of cement alternatives, yes they may be longer term issues with have the same level of availability that we have today for some of them (GGBS?) hence the industries road map for decarbonisation does not rely on their use in the long term, it is about decarbonising portland cement. in the interim, greater use of our plentiful supply of powdered limestone will help, as could other natural pozzolans. we also have a very large resource of ash in the UK from decades of coal ash and an initiative has been announced to recover that ash for use in concrete products.

MaD what is your real name?

Similar to Jack’s question, does the end of life carbonation rely on the crushed concrete being spread out and exposed to the air for a certain period of time - does carbonation happen if it is buried?

Thanks Elaine, do The Concrete Centre accept that, in the short/medium term whilst Portland Cement is not decarbonised, it will be necessary for the construction sector to minimise the use of concrete where possible (replace concrete with alternatives) thus saving the use of concrete for any residual use that cannot be substituted (foundations/groundwork)?

MaD: i think i can assume that you are an engineer regarding your question about carbonation?! yes, the extent of carbonation in reinforced structure still needs to be limited at an individual project level through design, but it can still spike in carbonation when crushed. for mass concrete there are potentially more carbonation opportunities. incidentally...if you add up all those small amounts of carbonation taking place in exposed concrete surfaces around the country that is likely to add up to a very considerable sum

Hi Elaine, thanks for the thorough presentation. Can I ask about the 44% CO2 reduction you cited for the industry bringing its emissions to below zero. Are these benefits at a building level and if so, can you explain where this sits within the concrete industry’s scope emissions (Somewhere in scope 3?) Thanks.

Good question Joe.

It takes very little time for exposed crushed concrete to carbonate. Piling concrete can limit carbonation, but it will still happen with varying limits degrees: depending on the nature of pile and how it is managed within a demolition site. There is a standard on carbonation calculation methodology: EN 16757

MaD = Make a Difference Network but I am BrianSpecMan Murphy

I work for BAM Construction we did a pilot project with Celsa Steel in South Wales, removing steel roof trusses of a refurb project of ours that could not be reused, to their facility as scrap metal waste (duty of care compliant), really successful project, and had their rebar back on site in the foundations.

Jack Scarr: You can hear an update and more details about the multi-component cements project in a webinar we have planned on 3 November called Concrete Futures (details to be announced soon) There are already some details available in a previous event recording https://www.concretecentre.com/CPD-Events/Events/Concrete-Futures-Lecture-A-new-generation-of-low-c.aspx We had anticipated an amendment to eh BS8500 already, but looks like it will be next year now. (hopefully early on!)

Charlie Law: Of the 5 trees planted to replace 2 trees harvested, how many are thinned and when and how many grow to maturity before harvesting?

Do we grow C24 timber in this country?

How much of that HWP is home grown? and how much imported?

rebar is always very high recycled content. structural steel varies but I understand British Steel have increased their recycled content to approx. 30% in their BOF process in the UK. There is very little EAF capacity in the UK currently. All manufacturers are racing to improve their production. currently mostly by using green energy to produce

Jack Scarr: re your 2nd question and getting demolition contractors to leave aggregates for a while to carbonate, i think Hafiz has pretty much answered. The carbonation does continue even when below ground or water. at the moment, as most is used in the unbound state the need to leave it one site isn't that essential, But if we change demolition processes to segregate the demolition content so that the aggregate is more likely to be used in bound applications, then yes I could see that there might be some benefit.....another area of carbon good practice to evolve I expect

British Steel have just announced a seminar online on 22nd October at 1pm for anyone wanting to hear their route to zero plans

Roy, thanks for the great stats. Are you able to direct us to any guidance on design guidance for designing to use recycled steel or facilitate easier re-use at end of life e.g. standardised dimensions, good connection details, methods for mitigating costs, and other considersations?

Hi Seb. The Steel Construction Institute have quite a bit of online resource. I am also working on a few projects that will have formal output this year. The BCSA will also be issuing quite a lot of stuff later this month but I wasn't allowed to give a sneak preview!! So watch out for it coming. If you, or anyone, wants to get in touch later to discuss further I am very happy to do so, even if you don't want pipe!!! roy@cleveland-steel.com

Alastair Kay: re ECO2 of recycled concrete. do you mean of recycled aggregate or reused concrete? In the Uk the aggregates are typically a bit higher than most natural aggregates... just because the UK aggs tend to be so very low. did that answer your question? there is more information in our publication guidance: https://www.concretecentre.com/Resources/Publications/Specifying-Sustainable-Concrete.aspx

Roy, regarding quantifying the benefits of reusing steel, are there any EDPs or studies looking at the upfront carbon of resused steel sections - ie there’s no real manufacturing carbon, but there will be transport (maybe to a holding site, then to s=construction site) plus some processing for cosmetic reasons - cleaning up old joints, regalvansing, etc. Thanks!

Have Timber Development UK looked at how much more land would be ideally required in the UK to supply timber (on your 40 year cycle model) to meet most new housing built from timber going forward to 2030/2050? Thanks

Thanks, Charlie, for presenting that nicely the benefits and carbon capture of forest and timber. The short movie you’ve just showed, could you provide us with the (YouTube) link?

Charlie do you believe that biogenic carbon will be included in the LCAs as a carbon sequestrations matter

Wood for Good videos: https://woodforgood.com/videos/

Elanine got the point

Carbon sequestration can be included where a whole life assessment is carried out, however as mentioned the sequestration figure is passed onto the next product at end of life.

Must not forget timber formwork for concrete

Material balance

I guess the problem is that we've demonstrably got the balance wrong in the past, and now, (see climate emergency) so how do the speakers feel we need change the balance of materials we currently use?

Hi Carlie, absolutelly, but there are many ways o managing the end o life use beyond the boundaries(D) even cradle to cradle, but it is not considered in the LCS

Design to reduce Waste avoid offcut waste, know the size of stuff

Jae. Simple answer is no. However our LCA available on the website includes some recovery costs for pipe. It is also the case that fabrication and transport are usually less than 10% of the carbon cost of new production so it wont be far off for reuse. Coatings are the big issue. We are looking at getting some of this data currently but I struggle for time to do it all

Steel corkscrew or consolidated aggregate foundations

As, shouldn't that be considered a miscalculation not considering the reusability, recyclability and land use that the wood products provide, and consider only the incineration instead?

I agree that refurbishment is key to this but the tax system needs to be amended to put refurbishment within the same VAT category as new build.

many manufacturers drive down energy to save money they did not need to have an EPD to do that

Agree with Mark

@Charlie Shouldn't that be considered a miscalculation not considering the reusability, recyclability and land use that the wood products provide, and consider only the incineration instead?

Joe. I am not sure there is a simple answer as each built product is different and whilst we should focus on less carbon in a building then we should have less buildings that do more? One absolute key is making sure we improve going forward for potential waste and elimination of it

EPDs are only really useful when we have enough to compare or calculate

We should have an EPD for building as a final product which sum all materials EPDs plus the building performance

I agree with Elaine we need to have consistency... In finland they have built a Government funded database to back up their new regulation for whole life carbon assessment https://co2data.fi/

Manufacturers will hide behind BRE GGtS EPs rather than get the EPD for their own

as regards foundations I would say it depends. Some nice projects recently where the demolished building has been used to create aggregate or even brick foundations

Assessments should be based on a building context. EN 15804 offers details on how construction solution comparisons should be carried out and stresses on the need for functional equivalence in comparisons where both operational & embodied impacts need to be considered

Dont you woeery MaD ater the climate declarations become mandatory, the certifications will be useul but not play the main role no longer

I would hope that EPDs help us as architect to be able choose the right products for a more ecological project, so I think it is important to have more products with this declaration.

@Rosanna I don't consider this a miscalculation, but we do need to recognise the carbon that is stored for a significant period in many cases, not just the 60 year nominal figure, and this is not currently not the case.

@Charlie, Ok, if it does exist, but not considered, would that produce results that miss data to be closer to reality?

I think over engineering is another significant area that should be addressed. For example, the data for timber calculations are not that sophisticated (for example), not very much specific for laminated timbers for example - if we had better data we could reduce specification. The safety factors are very high in building industry - do they need to be?

Better Design starts with better education

@ Sonja: It’s good to hear architects want more EPD! As manufacturers of Timber cladding, we found registering an EPD was a non-trivial process. But it did encourage us to reduce emissions in our production process. https://www.vastern.co.uk/brimstone-epd-updates-and-key-information/

@Sonja, that is not want a EPD is design for. EPD is a declaration "only". eco-labels do exactly what you asks for: a product assessment. That's what we as natureplus want to provide you with. Check out the product database https://www.baubook.at/natureplus/?SW=32&lng=2.

As just mentioned: You find more than 500 certified products on the natureplus database. These products provide without any doubt (thanks to the independent eco-label assessment) a climate-friendly alternative. Low carbon footprint or even even with carbon storage benefit.

I wonder why pallets aren't made of re-cycled plastic and re-used

Following on from Jae, we also need to design for appropriate loads so that we don't have heaps of spare capacity for when the building is in use.

Joe, re readdressing an imbalance in the past... I agree, but i wouldn't necessarily say this necessitates a significant shift away from concrete to do that...it requires a shift towards lower carbon concrete (in the past carbon has not been a factor in its specification) it has been demonstrated in many projects that concrete can provide comparable ECO2 figures to CLT. there is no silver bullet

Peter B: many are made of RePlastic but a bigger problem unless collected by the producer

Thank you for joining us today - it’s been an excellent session. We’ll be sending over a feedback form after the event and would be very grateful for your input!

as regards material consumption everyone has to look at the impact of their decisions. We recently failed to buy 14kilometres of pipe for reuse from HS2 as they classified the material as hazardous so it all dad to be scrapped. we supply brand new slings and timbers for every load for some clients as they inssit on it regardless of performance

Well said, Mark 👏

Great event, and good debate in the chat! thanks all

Very helpful webinar, thank you.

Thanks!!

that was great, thanks you all!

Thanks

Thanks all, really interesting webinar!

Thank you all! It was very interesting!

Thank you very much!

thank you all, this was great

joe@asbp.org.uk

thanks very much for inviting me. a good discussion.

Very useful. Many thanks

Totally agree MaD, we could save so much on structure if engineers were trained to design less conservatively

You can register here for all recordings and events of the natureplus event series "How to build climate protection" Simon just showed: https://www.natureplus.org/index.php?id=226

thank you very much, very interesting and thought provoking

Thanks everyone!

Thanks everyone

Thanks

Thanks

Thanks

happy to come back and explore more detail

thanks!

You can register here for all recordings and events of the natureplus event series "How to build climate protection" Simon just showed: https://www.natureplus.org/index.php?id=226

thank you