Show recruiters you’re a green graduate civil engineer

Nicole Lazarus is ‘One Planet Living’ UK manager at BioRegional Development Group, and has been promoting sustainable living for more than ten years. Here, she explains the meanings of key sustainability terms and suggests how graduates can make a difference from the start of their career.

Sustainability term 1: carbon emissions

The emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere – particularly through the burning of fossil fuels for energy – has led to a build up of ‘greenhouse gases’ and is a significant cause of global warming. There’s now a worldwide push to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide.

Many construction organisations are developing innovative techniques to combat carbon emissions both during construction and for projects’ lifetimes. We’ll see the effect of excessive carbon use in our own lifetimes: it’s not wishy-washy talk, it’s a matter of survival. New civil and structural engineers will be able to find the answers because they’ll come into the industry without being set in the old ways.

Sustainability term 2: eco-footprints

Ecological footprinting – commonly known as eco-footprinting – involves calculating the area of biologically productive land and sea needed to meet our consumption. For instance, it takes 25 hectares of productive sea to produce each tonne of fish we consume and 0.35 hectares of forest to absorb each tonne of carbon dioxide we produce by burning fossil fuels. From these and other figures we can work out the actual area of land needed to produce what we use – and it’s clear that we’re using more than we should. Eco-footprinting is the only technique that compares what we use with the earth’s actual capacity.

Sustainability term 3: One Planet Living

The WWF Living Planet Report used eco-footprints to show that we are consuming far more than the actual land area on Earth can provide us with. If everyone in the world lived the same lifestyle as we do in the UK, we’d need three planets. To sustain the US lifestyle worldwide, we’d need six planets. In some parts of Africa, however, it’s about a fifth of a planet. This realisation has led to the development of ‘One Planet Living’ principles – changing technologies and patterns of consumption so that we only use one planet’s worth of resources.

The One Planet Living principles aim to reduce consumption while maintaining a decent lifestyle. We could easily meet targets if people were poor, had few possessions and didn’t go to the theatre or watch movies… but the world would be impoverished culturally. Sustainability doesn’t have to be incompatible with technology; in fact many technological innovations not only increase sustainability but also lead to a better standard of living. One Planet Living seeks funky, aspirational solutions so that everyone can enjoy a good lifestyle while living within their fair share of the planet’s resources – 1.8 hectares apiece – and not taking resources from someone else or someone in the future.

Sustainability term 4: embodied energy

When looking at possible materials to use in a construction project, it’s important to investigate their embodied energy. In simple terms, this is the amount of energy that has been expended in their production. For example, a brick’s embodied energy is very high, as it takes a lot of energy to produce. Many organisations crush bricks and reuse them as a sub-base or a fill for roads. This does keep the bricks out of landfill but it destroys all that embodied energy – 98 per cent of the resource value has been lost. It makes far more sense to use rubble for fill and to reuse the brick as brick.

Producing aluminium uses a lot of energy, but because it resists rust and is highly durable it can be the best material to use in certain circumstances (such as in inaccessible areas). It’s a balancing act – you have to take different factors into account to calculate the most sustainable materials and construction methods.

Sustainability term 5: reclamation and reuse

Recycling helps to divert waste from landfill – but it’s not addressing carbon emissions or other environmental issues. There’s often a choice of whether to build something new or not – you can often reuse an existing building. I’m currently working with a brilliant structural engineer who is reusing the foundations from a building that was knocked down. The top part wasn’t salvageable but the foundations are still intact, and that means they don’t have to dig up all the old concrete and pour a new load in.

It’s also important to use reclaimed materials – the building I work in has a frame made of steel from old buildings. Consulting engineers can survey steel to check its integrity – if it’s still straight and hasn’t been damaged, you can use it just like new. Developing sustainable techniques requires more initiative, so the construction industry is a great place for intelligent engineers.

Sustainability term 6: designing for deconstruction

Recycling old buildings isn’t the only way to reduce the use of materials. There’s now a push to design for deconstruction – in other words, to construct buildings that can be taken apart at the end of their life so the parts can be reused. Unfortunately, a lot of recent buildings have been built so that you can’t reuse them – for example, timber is incorporated in such complex components that you can’t take it apart; bricks are held together with super-strong cement. The Victorians used far more reclaimable materials, such as lime cement. Designing for deconstruction is about being clever and designing with just one more criterion – how are we going to take the building down at the end?

One of the big errors of the environmental movement is to put too much emphasis on homes and offices. Civil and structural engineers do all sorts of work – with roads, harbours, airports, hospitals, power stations – and we need to reduce the environmental impact of all projects. Sustainability isn’t just a buzzword – it’s essential for survival and graduates will be able to play a critical role.