A new ‘independent’ database of products has been designed to help specifiers substitute and reduce the use of plastic in buildings they are designing, and thereby tackle a major sustainability challenge. Architect Gareth Abrahams explains how the Changing Streams initiative is working with academia on the way forward
Over the last 10 years, there has been a growing awareness that the buildings we live and work in play a fundamental role in achieving our sustainability ambitions. We can see this in the Building Regulations, which have seen many revisions to Part L over this period.
Each of these revisions has been used to encourage us to design buildings that perform better by retaining the energy used for heating and cooling. As architects, we have become adept at specifying materials according to their thermal conductivity, and their capacity to fit together as part of an airtight thermal envelope. The problem, we argue at Changing Streams, is that our focus has been governed too firmly by the way materials behave and perform, and less by what they are made of. Or, put differently, we have been increasingly sensitive to what materials do and less aware of what they are.
There are signs that things are changing. When we talk about operational energy and carbon, many of us are also referring to embodied carbon. Indeed, this link between operational and embodied carbon is now part of the RIBA’s sustainability targets, along with potable water use. This wider conception of sustainable building design is important if we are to achieve a more balanced approach to national carbon zero targets. But these changes in behaviour and framing only partly tackle this gap. If we are to develop a more nuanced approach to sustainability, then we also need to think about the amount of plastic that is used in these products.
Much of the plastic that is produced today will take many years to degrade, very little of it will be recycled, and the small portion that is recycled will only be recycled several times. At some point, some of this plastic will be burned, and some of it will enter our ecosystem through our streams and soils. We have all seen wildlife programmes showing the impacts of plastic within our oceans, and we have read reports in the newspapers about microplastics in our food, our drinking water, and ultimately, in our bodies.
So far, these documentaries and newspaper articles have mostly shown plastics produced by the retail sector. We have seen plastic bags in the ocean, crisp packets in bushes, and water bottles on beaches. But it is important to consider that the construction sector is the second largest consumer of plastic after the retail sector. The construction industry in the UK generates a staggering 50,000 tons of plastic packaging waste annually. Alarmingly, if current trends persist, plastic pollution in construction could triple by 2060, surpassing 1.1 billion tons of waste. And so, while we may not see pieces of insulation or membranes in these images, the construction sector is the second largest contributor to plastic pollution. Given that much of this plastic is specified by architects and other members of the design team, this suggests the specification process is central to any efforts to curb plastic pollution and the environmental impacts this has.
So how do we reduce the amount of plastic used in building construction? This is the underlying question directing our work and our partnership with the University of Liverpool. Since 2018, Changing Streams has worked hard to draw attention to this issue, to engage with key actors in the construction industry, to formalise their commitment to plastic reduction measures, and to undertake research to help us understand where this plastic is located in real-world projects. Over the last few years, such research has been developed through a dedicated research centre within the School of Environmental Sciences. This research is the first of its kind in the world, and has provided industry funders with the knowledge and insights they need to make a real change on real projects.
But this research is only one part of a much bigger strategy. If we are to truly help reduce plastic, we need to provide industry with the information and tools they need to make better decisions. It is with this in mind, that we drew on this research to develop Changing Materials, a materials database that architects can use to inform outline and full NBS specifications.
Unlike some of the other databases we can find in the sector, this database will be focused on plastic reduction and will not be funded by product manufacturers or suppliers. This independence is important because it means that the information can remain impartial and free of any conscious – or unconscious – bias.
We are at the early stages of this ambitious project, and so we are calling on architects from industry to work with us; to engage with the information we produce; to ask questions; offer new ideas and new materials that we have not considered. We are also calling on product manufacturers to contact us so we can include your products in our database. It is only by working together in this way that we can challenge some of the normative assumptions, rules of thumb, and take for granted ideas that have structured the industry for too long.
Dr Gareth Abrahams is co-founder and director of Changing Streams CIC (and senior lecturer in Environmental Sciences/ head of the Changing Streams Research Centre at the University of Liverpool)