Steve Webb of Yates Webb Engineers is really pissed off, and vents in The RIBA Journal:
If I drive a Range Rover to the supermarket I produce about 400g of CO2. Should we measure environmental morality in Range Rover Shopping Trips – RSTs? An RST is an ugly spectacle: me a paunchy middle aged guy, my wrap-around shades, in a ‘commanding’ driving position, nonchalantly palming my giant car between trolley-pushing pedestrians in the Sainsbury’s car park. Meanwhile in a studio nearby, a designer, loving the precision of razor sharp edges, draws a gorgeous slender bookshelf out of steel. It weighs 500kg, making about 1.5t of CO2, so jot him down for 3,750 RSTs: a daily Range Rover drive to Sainsbury’s and back every day for 10 years – and that’s just a morning’s work for him. An engineer churns out the same old steel picture frame instead of a timber one – that’s 2t of steel and 6t of CO2: she’s on 15,000 RSTs. A planner that insists on a brick facade produces 253t of CO2 – 632,500 RSTs. Bricks are bad. They’re baked, doh! If a contractor, balking at the unknown, persuades a client to make a block of flats concrete instead of cross laminated timber that’s 2,300t of CO2. Now we’re on 5.76 million RSTs. No matter that we’re peddling around on our Bromptons. We are actually all driving the Range Rover to Sainsbury’s… a lot.
It’s hard to swallow that we [the construction industry] are personally at fault. How can we rightminded modern people be perpetrating such a thing? Another architect told me recently that many buildings are not designed by architects, implying that these ‘other’ buildings are the problem. Barratt Homes’ houses are normally wood-framed! I’m sorry to say the ‘new London vernacular’ architect-designed end of the housing spectrum is the brick and concrete, carbon-heavy, one. Go Barratt!
As a practice transitions from morally acceptable to morally unacceptable due to increasing world-wide population densities and improving, but energy-demanding, quality of life in a world where morals are thought to be unchanging absolutes, but are not, it’s actually not surprising. Our perceptual systems are not built for it, our mindsets are against it. Good for Yates Webb to recognize the problem in their own backyard.
And what is Yates Webb doing? A statement:
Webb Yates Engineers has signed and fully supports the UK Structural Engineers Declare Climate & Biodiversity Emergency in addition to the Civil Engineer, Building Services Engineer and Architecture declaration.
We understand that environmentally conscientious design is imperative and we acknowledge that the construction industry currently contributes close to 40 percent of global emissions. We believe it is critical to be part of the solution and are committed to strengthening our professional practice in order to create engineering outcomes that have a positive impact on the natural environment.
We encourage all engineering professionals to sign the declaration
Some woodwork:
And a spectacular stone staircase:
Too bad they’re UK, not Minnesota, based.
