Environmental Issues - Policies
Sustainable development is popularly defined as: 'development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'.
Bruntland Commission 1987
Our corporate environment charter promotes "efficient use of natural resources in respect of purchasing goods and services" and consideration of “national and global environmental implications together with the needs of future generations".
The implementation of the sustainable construction policy via the regeneration of Lambeth's housing stock will play a major role in fulfilling the commitments of our environment charter.
The building industry consumes a significant amount of non-renewable resources, including energy during the use, extraction and manufacture of materials and products. 20-25% of the total CO2 emissions of Britain come from housing.
Significantly, 30% of this could be easily reduced by energy conservation measures. Water consumption in new build projects can be reduced by 30%. Alternatives exist for the 50% of the ozone depleting chemicals used in the UK, specified or installed by the building industry. Embodied energy can be reduced by 50% through careful design and specification. Our housing sustainable construction policy provides a framework to promote best practice in the way we procure our construction programmes.
A new WWF report attempts to estimate the UK's ''forest footprint'' on the rest of the world. It estimates that the UK needs 6.4 million hectares of woodland to meet its demand - an area nine times the size of Ireland - just to supply wood for building and furniture, which is why it is so important to ensure we source timber from sustainable sources.
We are committed to using sustainable timber and require contract administrators, other construction professionals and contractors, individually and jointly, to demonstrate that their projects use only sustainable timber. The most effective way of doing this is by using timber with a “chain of custody” certification, enabling the timber to be traced to its forest of origin. The scheme preferred by us is the internationally recognised Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
FSC certification ensures timber has been sourced from a responsibly managed forest by tracking parcels of timber from forest to end user, stopping illegal trade. This promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests.