Addressing net zero in the North-east

“For our region, carbon reduction is much more within reach than in many others, because the North-east is so well connected as an industry. We all know each other, supply chains are never, ever too far away and the North-east region’s labour is all very local,” said Darush Dodds, director of corporate services and social value, Esh Group. “To do a job here is quite cheap. So, I think all of that’s a massive plus for our region when it comes to working towards net zero.”

Dodds was speaking at the Building the Future Commission’s second regional roundtable, which last month took place in Newcastle and focused on the challenges and opportunities of achieving net zero in the North-east of England.

Since the start of the year the Building the Future Commission initiative has been working to discover solutions and initiatives to improve the built environment. The project does not focus on one area but instead is divided into eight workstreams focused on different aspects of the industry.

As part of the commission’s fact-finding work, and in partnership with Constructing Excellence, we are going around the country convening high-level roundtable discussions with experts in different regions to ensure that the commission hears from all corners of the UK.

The first of these saw Building gather a group of experts who each had links to the East of England for a chat about skills in a region that some see as living in London’s shadow, before the commission’s roadshow headed to Newcastle to hear from those in the North-east.

The North-east panel (listed below), chaired by Building’s editorial director Chloë McCulloch, was made up of construction leaders, all of whom have strong connections to the region and bring with them a high level of local knowledge and experience.

A close-knit community 

The truth of Dodds’ observation about the construction industry in the North-east being a tight knit community was immediately apparent around the table, as everyone knew each other and was on first-name terms. Something the whole panel seemed to agree on was that the region’s connectedness means it is in a stronger position than others to collaborate on net zero.

Catriona Lingwood, chief executive of Constructing Excellence North East, said that where this can be particularly important is assisting smaller businesses within construction on their net zero journey. “To be frank, we need to start helping them or they aren’t going to get there,” she said. “And if the smaller and medium-sized businesses aren’t making progress, no matter what the rest of us do it isn’t going to have any real impact.”

But the panel felt this did not necessarily mean the sector was collaborating as efficiently as it could. “In general, as a region, everyone needs to be more educated; we need to have better integration of lessons learnt,” said Hollie Statham, design manager at Bowmer & Kirkland. “There are lots of brilliant projects, great ideas and approaches out there, but we aren’t as joined up as we could be to apply wider learnings. There is definitely need to improve there.”

On this point, Jessica Cook, net zero programme manager at the North of Tyne Combined Authority, said there needs to be an increased willingness to share when something hasn’t worked. “While of course it is wonderful to share best practice, it can be even more useful to hear about what hasn’t worked,” she said. “To be fair, we are seeing that happen increasingly, but accelerating that knowledge share is key.”

Joanne Murray, executive consultant at Gleeds, added that this collaboration is required in order to educate clients. “There is a distinct lack of understanding on what net zero actually is, with many clients,” she says. “They come wanting a net zero project, but when what that entails is presented, and the risks associated, they are often unprepared.”

Making sense of the numbers 

“Getting the metrics right is absolutely key. You measure it, you’ll correct it and you’ll move it,” said Steven Lynn, operations director at Kier Construction. He pointed out a lack of consistency across the industry when it comes to tracking and measuring both embodied and operational data, making it hard to see how the industry is progressing. He added: “In all honesty, we can’t get anywhere if we aren’t measuring correctly – as we don’t even know where we are starting from.”

Cook agreed, saying that a cohesive approach to measurement of carbon usage must be a top priority. “We need to all baseline from the same point with the same methodology, otherwise we are comparing apples with oranges and can’t get a view of the bigger picture.”

Dodds said that many tier one or main contractors have fairly good sight of their scope one and two emissions but that scope three was significantly more tricky to track at present due to inconsistency in the supply chain. 

What do we do about skills?

“At a technical level the skills are just simply not there at the moment,” said Mark Gardham, regional director at Sir Robert McAlpine. “We are getting graduates or apprentices that aren’t being taught the skills they need, so what we as an industry need to do is help change that.” 

Simon Tolson, senior partner at Fenwick Elliott, drew a comparison with building safety competency and the need for new and improved skill sets post Grenfell. “There is currently a sharp focus on the need for green skills, as there has been for building safety competency,” he said. ”There is a need to re-educate people who missed out on that training.There needs to be upskilling; there are new technologies, new materials and new skills, all of which are going to have to be learnt.”

Lee Francis, chief executive of Re:gen Group, which specialises in the retrofit and regeneration of social housing, concurred, saying that when it became a requirement for those working on social housing decarbonisation fund projects to have PAS 2030 certifications for energy efficiency installations, the skills shortfall was never clearer. There were certain specialities where there was no one in the region appropriately qualified to carry out work, he noted, adding that “colleges are now trying to roll out these courses [which teach retrofit skills] without industry knowledge because the government is throwing money at them” but that cannot be the path forward.

But as both Dodds and Francis pointed out, there are new retrofit specific courses (see the panel ideas summary section) on which they have been working with local colleges, designed to provide the skills the region needs most. 

The solutions

As the roundtable approached its end after an hour and a half of vigorous debate, the panel were asked to come out with proposal for the Building the Future Commission on how to further net zero in their region. Responses (see below) included suggestions around encouraging and enabling innovation, how to enable change within the construction supply chain, and what is needed to ensure we are all moving in the same direction.

The key takeaways for the commission from the North-east of England roundtable were around the importance of the industry collaborating and sharing best practice, a focus on collecting and sharing the right data, and aligning aims across all parts of the sector, including training providers.