There is now enormous focus on minimising carbon in building structures and operationally, but frequently the design and specification of civils works seems to be overlooked. Before I go any further, I should say that I’m using the phrase “civils works” to refer to the external works, hard landscaping and drainage works on your normal, run-of-the-mill type project, where the civils items are often buried or hidden, may be seen as secondary to the main building or project, or just a fairly standard public realm improvement.

The civils aspects of these projects frequently have large quantities of materials generated from a few typical details, often simply copied from previous projects. Think of surface-grade car parking, often just a detail or two for the kerbs and the surfacing build-up, but the actual works cover a large area with significant amounts of materials. Generally, this is all simple stuff and therefore not really thought about, particularly from a carbon perspective. However, small changes to the design approach and material specification can have big impacts because of the quantities of materials used. Bigger changes could have a far greater impact.

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