Carbon-wise construction

A new online tool that will help construction companies plan so-called "carbon-wise" projects and reduce their carbon footprint has been launched by the Environment Agency.

The spreadsheet-based tool, which from November 2007 will be mandatory to use during the planning stage on all major Environment Agency construction projects, is now being made available to other construction companies, government bodies and consultants.

'At the Environment Agency we are always looking to ways of reducing the environmental impact from our own construction projects. We spend around £200m a year on construction projects, which accounts for about three per cent of the construction civil engineering sector,' said Andrew Powell, Technical Advisor at the Environment Agency.

'With this in mind over the past year, together with Jacobs Consultants, we developed a new tool for calculating the carbon footprint from construction projects. We have been trialling the tool as part of environmental audits on the building of new flood defences schemes,' he added.