Property management and construction companies have created the UK
Green Building Council as an umbrella organization to unite their
sustainability programmes over the next decade.
Altogether 36 companies, including Aggregate Industries, British Land,
Hanson, Land Securities Group, Lend Lease and Willmott Dixon
Construction, have become founding members.
The council will be chaired by Peter Rogers, director of property
management company Stanhope, who said the intention was ‘to unite what
is currently a highly fragmented industry around a set of core
[sustainability] goals’.
The council, which has the support of the environment network WWF, will
issue sector guidelines to ensure that sustainability principles are
followed at all stages of the business cycle ‘from funding and
procurement to design, construction and maintenance’. Members will
share best practice and knowledge.
However, Rogers warned that they must also accept ‘a radical
transformation’ in the way they behave and that ‘incremental change is
a luxury we can no longer afford’.
Rab Bennetts, founder director of the architectural practice Bennetts
Associates, which describes itself as a sustainability specialist and
is a founding member of the council, said: ‘The property and
construction industry has at last accepted the need for change, and the
council is a long overdue forum for bringing all parties together in a
way that pressure groups or specialist research organizations could
never do before.’
John Garbutt, marketing director at building products company Kingspan,
another of the founders, said the group was partly a response to the UK
government ‘upping the ante in demanding that the construction industry
create environmentally sustainable buildings’. He said the council will
make sure that good intentions on sustainability do not end up as ‘just
a pipe dream’.
The council, whose members include the international consultancy Arup,
will encourage smaller businesses, including those supplying its
members, to sign up.
