Sustainability in Construction
Government policy and regulation, along with greater consumer awareness and concern, are key drivers influencing what construction customers expect from their suppliers in terms of sustainability.
Despite the problems of the recession, indicators are that sustainability will remain high on the agenda of both government and major clients. Companies must thus ensure that they and their sales teams are fully versed in the requirements of sustainability and how they can meet these.
While many see this as a burden and cost, it is an opportunity and will provide those companies that fully understand the issues with a chance to differentiate themselves from their competitors and ensure firm specification of their products.
Competitive Advantage has developed an expertise in this area and can help you to maximise the opportunity for your business with the following solutions:
An overview of the drivers for change, current and planned legislation and the organisations behind the adoption of sustainability in the UK construction market.
A half day course providing an understanding of sustainability, its drivers and suggesting strategies to promote sustainability.
Sustainability Review
Benefits
- Enables understanding of key issues in a fast moving and often confusing area of business.
- Identifies market expectations for a particular product or service.
- Ensures all opportunities for promotion of product, services, and company are identified.
- Ensures customer queries can be properly answered and demands met.
- Avoids pitfalls due to inadequate in-house knowledge.
Components
- A baseline exercise to gather evidence of the company's current position and sustainability impacts.
- A more detailed exercise to define the company's sustainability vision, identifying material issues and management strategies. If necessary, undertaking strategic stakeholder engagement and developing performance indicators, metrics and roadmaps.
- A detailed review of company and product sustainability documentation.
- A report outlining the key findings and recommendations for a programme to enable the company to meet customer needs.
Producer Responsibility Review
Benefits
- Enables understanding of key issues in a new and confusing area of business.
- Identifies market expectations for a particular product.
- Ensures that all opportunities for promotion of product, services, and company are identified.
- Ensures customer queries can be properly answered and demands met.
- Avoids pitfalls by supplementing in-house knowledge.
Components
- Advice on emerging issues, existing and forthcoming legislation [for example the impact of packaging and waste regulations on your company or BRE Environmental and Sustainability Standard (BES) 6001:2008].
- Clarification of market expectations for relevant product types.
- Facilitate stakeholder reviews of products or services.
- An analysis of current company documentation and recommendations for improvement.
- A report outlining the key findings and recommendations for a programme to enable the company to meet customer needs.
Marketing Sustainability
Benefits
- Identifies market expectations for a product or service.
- Ensures all opportunities for promotion of product, services, and company are identified.
- Avoids pitfalls due to inadequate in-house knowledge
Components
- Identification of key features and benefits of the current portfolio together with recommendations for a communications campaign to build sales and margin.
- Identification of opportunities for new products and services to strengthen company brand and reputation.
Other Support
Once your company has started down the path of sustainability it must ensure that it is effectively promoting these features.
Use our training course "Marketing Building Products in a Sustainable Market" to improve skills. Available as an in-house programme when it can be tailored to your needs, or as a one day Open Course held at the Building Centre in London.
The Sustainability Team
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Chris Ashworth
Chris has worked in construction industry sales and marketing for thirty years. His extensive experience includes specification sales and market research. He is an Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, a member of the CIMCIG organising committee and regularly writes for industry publications.
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Jeremy Sumeray
Jeremy’s roles have included Director of Strategy for the UKGBC and a secondment to the Sustainable Development Commission where he developed the UK Sustainable Construction Strategy. His construction industry experience was gained with Lafarge and Redland Roofing.
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Bill Wright
Bill worked for 24 years with John Lewis Partnership. Most recently as Corporate Energy and Environment Manager responsible for the group’s sustainability policy, he was also Chief Electrical Engineer for 10 years. He is Chairman of the Electrical Safety Council, a Director of Summitskills and on the Institution of Electrical Engineers committee for IEE Wiring Regulations
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