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The mitigation of climate change and its adverse consequences is highly urgent. It has produced a global response in the form of the Paris Agreement, which aims to tackle global warming and adapt to it. It has resulted in enacting the Climate Change Act 2008, setting a target for 2050 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There are profound implications for all sectors across the United Kingdom, and this study focuses on the construction industry. This research aims to build on the existing literature, evaluate the attitude of UK construction professionals about the achievability of the goals set, and identify methods for improvement as an industry. This investigation combines qualitative and quantitative methods to gather secondary data from the literature and primary data via a questionnaire. The analysis shows that despite climate legislation, there is a need for more significant action to meet the agreed-upon targets. Also, the construction sector and its professionals need help to achieve the set targets. This need has hampered the confidence to achieve targets within the industry. The recommendations listed in this paper illuminate the path of overcoming these obstacles and give us a way to further research how the industry can evolve and contribute toward climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the failure of competitively tendered projects in the UK construction industry to procure the most suited contractor(s) to conduct the works. Such work may have equal relevance for other developed nations globally. This research seeks to teach clients and their representatives that “lowest price” does not mean “best value”, by presenting a case study of a successfully negotiated tender undertaken by a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) contractor; SME studies are relatively scant in academic literature. By applying the “lessons learnt” principle, this study seeks to improve future practice through the development of a novel alternative procurement option (i.e., negotiation). A mixed philosophical stance combining interpretivism and pragmatism was used—interpretivism to critically review literature in order to form the basis of inductive research to discuss negotiation as a viable procurement route, and pragmatism to analyse perceptions of tendering and procurement. The methods used follow a three-stage waterfall process including: (1) literature review and pilot study; (2) quantitative analysis of case study data; and (3) qualitative data collection via a focus group. Our research underscores the need to advise clients and their representatives of the importance of understanding the scope of works allowed within a tender submission before discounting it based solely on price. In addition, we highlight the failings of competitive tendering, which results in increased costs and project duration once the works commence on site. These findings provide new contemporary insight into procurement and tendering in the construction industry, with emphasis on SME contractors, existing relationships, and open-book negotiation. This research illustrates the adverse effects of early cost estimates produced without first securing a true understanding of project buildability and programming. Our work concludes with a novel insight into an alternative procurement option that involves early SME contractor involvement in an open-book environment, without the need for a third-party cost control.

Sustainable construction can be defined as efficient resource use with ecological design. Three pillars are required to achieve sustainable construction: environmental protection, social well-being and economic prosperity. An increase in sustainable construction awareness among industry stakeholders could help improve levels of implementation. This paper aims to assess levels of awareness among UK practitioners and identify the barriers that inhibit sustainable construction. A mixed-method approach with questionnaire surveys and interviews was adopted. Questionnaire were distributed using MS Forms through social media (e.g., LinkedIn, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp) and the researcher's contacts. The survey concluded with 127 useable responses. Interviews were also conducted over MS Teams with eight professionals with different backgrounds. Respondents for the interview were conveniently gathered through snowball sampling. Data from the questionnaire survey were analysed using SPSS. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach's Alpha and RII were calculated for the level of awareness of sustainable construction practices and barriers to adoption of sustainable construction. Transcripts from the interview were thematically analysed using NVivo. The findings showed that the industry practitioners have above-average levels of awareness. Sustainable construction practices that respondents were most aware of was reduce, reuse and recycle. Respondents were not as aware of newer sustainable practices such as digital twin. Surprisingly, the most prevalent barrier was not cost. According to the respondents, the most prevalent barrier was a tendency to maintain current practices. Many real-life experiences are documented in this research. Insights into current practice in the industry and key barriers to adopting sustainable construction are identified. Addressing these barriers could improve the adoption of sustainable construction in the UK. • investigates up-to-date techniques for attaining sustainable construction in the UK. • assess the level of awareness among industry practitioners. • identifies the hurdles faced by the industry to attain sustainable construction. • explains the current practices of construction and areas for potential improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest available high-level top-down analysis shows that the embodied carbon of the UK construction in 2018 was 43 MtCO 2e , of which 80% came from materials and on-site activities. In this paper, for the first time, we combine a detailed bottom-up model of representative residential and non-residential buildings with top-down infrastructure and other material consumption data to quantify the material use and embodied carbon in UK construction. We found that almost 100 Mt of materials were used with an embodied carbon of 25 Mt CO 2 e. Half of these emissions were from concrete. We found that existing top-down approaches underestimate emissions by up to 20%. We developed a benchmark for UK building typologies and explore interventions to achieve the UK's carbon reduction goals. We found that conversion from non-domestic to domestic purposes can bring 34% embodied carbon savings of the construction total, 30% by avoiding demolition, 20% by switching to the most material and carbon efficient technology options and by 10% if all new houses were multi-storey buildings. We have shown that the bottom-up approach allows identifying areas with high potential for decarbionisation. Due to the flexibility of the model, it can be successfully used in other countries and regions. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind pressure data have been collected on the tiled roof of a full-scale test house at Silsoe in the UK. The tiled roof was of conventional UK construction with a batten-space and bitumen-felt underlay beneath the interlocking concrete tiles. Pressures were monitored on the outer surface of selected tiles, at several locations within the batten-space, and beneath the underlay. Data were collected both with and without ventilator tiles installed on the roof. Little information appears to exist on the share of wind load between tiles and underlays which creates uncertainty in the design of both components. The present study has found that for the critical design case of maximum uplifts it would be appropriate to assign 85% of the net roof load to the tiles and 15% to the underlay when an internal pressure coefficient of -0.3 is used, and to assign 60% to the tiles and 50% to the underlay when an internal pressure coefficient of +0.2 is assumed (an element of design conservatism is inherent in the apparent 110% net loading indicated by the latter pair of percentage values). These findings indicate that compared with loads implied by BS 6399-2, UK design loads for underlay are currently conservative by 25% whilst tile loads are unconservative by around 20% in ridge and general regions and by around 45% in edge regions on average over roof slopes of 150-60°. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the opportunities for, and barriers against, women within the UK construction industry. Women form the greater proportion of the economically active UK population and yet within construction, and other industries, they are under represented. Data available clearly indicates that women are more than capable of performing the tasks undertaken by many professional male counter-parts. Many of the professional bodies within the industry have a women's cohort, which may be perceived as a useful starting point, but does not fully reflect the potential available. It is suggested that women should be better represented and consideration is given to methods suitable for increasing the representation and reducing or eliminating some of the barriers to entry and eventual retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the failure of competitively tendered projects in the UK construction industry to procure the most suited contractor(s) to conduct the works. Such work may have equal relevance for other developed nations globally. This research seeks to teach clients and their representatives that "lowest price" does not mean "best value", by presenting a case study of a successfully negotiated tender undertaken by a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) contractor; SME studies are relatively scant in academic literature. By applying the "lessons learnt" principle, this study seeks to improve future practice through the development of a novel alternative procurement option (i.e., negotiation). A mixed philosophical stance combining interpretivism and pragmatism was used—interpretivism to critically review literature in order to form the basis of inductive research to discuss negotiation as a viable procurement route, and pragmatism to analyse perceptions of tendering and procurement. The methods used follow a three-stage waterfall process including: (1) literature review and pilot study; (2) quantitative analysis of case study data; and (3) qualitative data collection via a focus group. Our research underscores the need to advise clients and their representatives of the importance of understanding the scope of works allowed within a tender submission before discounting it based solely on price. In addition, we highlight the failings of competitive tendering, which results in increased costs and project duration once the works commence on site. These findings provide new contemporary insight into procurement and tendering in the construction industry, with emphasis on SME contractors, existing relationships, and open-book negotiation. This research illustrates the adverse effects of early cost estimates produced without first securing a true understanding of project buildability and programming. Our work concludes with a novel insight into an alternative procurement option that involves early SME contractor involvement in an open-book environment, without the need for a third-party cost control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]