Since late 2011 the European Commission has been getting to grips with resource efficiency, soon we may have an agreed road-map that guides Europe to the future, 2020 to be exact, when we will be resource efficient.

The Resource Efficient Europe website states ‘Natural resources underpin our economy and our quality of life. Continuing our current patterns of resource use is not an option.’

Much of the thinking behind the initiative is generated around security of supply; of energy and of the materials that power our IT world. Waste, indicators (of whether we are being efficient) and innovation (in extractive technologies) are the three main work streams.

As one of the biggest consumers of natural resources and generators of waste, construction has a role to play in the initiative. At Smith and Wallwork we are constantly trying to design lean, reducing the amount of material specified and where possible specifying local materials and skills. Bizarrely it is not always the solution that uses the least material that is cheapest, the de-skilling of our industry often means keeping things simple and robust is preferred (not helped by the increasing cost of thought and decreasing cost of materials).

The good news is that construction is putting some much needed thought into the area of resource efficiency and sharing it…if you are interested why not sign up for the ASBP’s February seminar ‘Resource Efficiency, Construction and the Circular Economy’?

For details of the ASBP’s seminar click here.