Opinion Piece by Claire Ackerman, The Concrete Centre 15 April 2021 Futurebuild’s Game Changers campaign has recently inspired me to think back through the key innovations in concrete design that have truly changed the face of the built environment. Concrete is undoubtedly a game changing material.  Throughout history it has helped to support our economy,

Opinion Piece by Martin Hurn Futurebuild 09 April 2021 Revealing the industry’s game changers   The products and technologies that will influence the future of construction Can you imagine living everyday life without your smartphone, central heating, or lightbulbs? We didn’t know how much we needed these products until they were invented — now we can’t

Opinion Piece by Jackie MaginnisChief Executive, MPBA 02 April 2021 Modular Technology and The Golden Thread  In her report ‘Building a Safer Future’, Dame Judith Hackitt highlights the need for a system-based approach with a golden thread of information running through the lifecycle of each project. Here Jackie Maginnis argues the case for modular technology

Opinion Piece by Sue Riddlestone, CEO, Bioregional 26 March 2021 Now is the moment to use our voices and influence policy  The UK Government is actively deliberating how to achieve net zero carbon in the built environment and reverse biodiversity loss as part of a slew of new policies. Those of us in the Futurebuild

Opinion Piece by Ann Marie Aguilar, Senior Vice President, EMEA, International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) The new WELL rating is a real boon, originally featured on Property Week 19 March 2021 As we think about the tools required to beat Covid-19, now more than ever our buildings are a critical part of the public health

Opinion Piece by May Winfield, Head of Commercial and LegalBuro Happold Overcoming the Challenges and Obstacles to Successfully Implement Technology, Digitisation and Digitalisation 12 March 2021 The construction industry is undergoing a significant (but rather slow…) transformation as it progresses towards Construction 4.0, with greater digitalisation and more automated production and assembly processes. The last

Opinion Piece by Sarah Mukherjee, CEO, IMEA Sustainable building 05 March 2021 I have been involved in and reporting on environmental policy for more than 20 years now, and perhaps rather depressingly, the main ask, be it carbon credits, green infrastructure or green skills, has stayed the same throughout this time, which is to enable

Opinion Piece by Keith Clarke CBE, Chair, Active Building Centre and Constructionarium Time to stop trying harder and do differently. 26 February 2021 Over many decades the construction sector (defined in the widest term of all those involved in creating our built environment) has had numerous programmes (Latham, Egon, etc) to improve our quality, productivity,

Opinion Piece by The Edge Positioning ourselves for COP26 and beyond – a plan for the built and natural environment 19 February 2021 Discussing Covid 19, Sarah Gilbert, the creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, has said, “We had been warned. But again we weren’t ready”. Unfortunately, and over a much longer period, the same is

Opinion Piece by Nick Tune, Digital Director, Atkins The Golden Thread is not just a nice to have, its a must for all projects. 29 January 2021 Most of us will have heard of the phrase Golden Thread due to the Hackett review into the Grenfell Tower disaster, so what is it and why is

Opinion Piece by Ana Ruiton, Consultant, Mott MacDonald Digital Transformation to build back better 22 January 2021 “Building back better” phrase is everywhere right now, from presidential campaigns slogans to pandemic recovery programmes, and we will be hearing it even more in 2021 with the potential of becoming a global motto in the years to

Opinion Piece by Justin Peckham, Head of Sales, UK, Ireland, Baltics, India and PortugalAccsys Group Greenwashing 04 December 2020 You may have heard of the term “greenwashing”. A play on the term “whitewashing”, greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company’s products are more environmentally sound.

Opinion Piece by Dr Don McLean, Founder & CEO, IES The Three Levels of “How” to Decarbonise 27 November 2020 The Decarbonisation of the Built Environment could be a much more expensive exercise and less effective than it needs to be.  To prevent this, we need to consider the three levels of ‘How’ to decarbonise.

Opinion Piece by Julie Godefroy CIBSE 10-Point plan for a green industrial revolution  20 November 2020 Government have published this week their 10-point plan to a green industrial revolution, which is meant to support the UK’s net zero carbon target as well as creating and supporting up to 250,000 British jobs and “levelling up” the

Opinion Piece by Hadeel Saadoon Estates Digital Services – BIM Manager Augmented Reality, Virtual reality and Mixed Reality technologies in the time of location independent working 13 November 2020 AR ,VR and MR technologies are becoming widespread and are evolving the meaning of visual communication. Every industry will be affected by AR and VR technologies.

Opinion Piece by Grant Findlay, Strategy Director, Sir Robert McAlpine How strategy, data and collaboration can facilitate the path to post-COVID recovery 06 November 2020 When business leaders retrospectively reflect on the impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on their respective industries, many are quick to reference the role the pandemic has played in triggering

Opinion Piece by Gillian Charlesworth, Chief Executive Officer, BRE Build back better The phrase Build Back Better has become one of the political rallying cries of 2020 in response to the global pandemic. In America, the US Presidential candidate Joe Biden unveiled the phrase as his campaign slogan in July, around the same time as

Opinion Piece by Allan Simpson, Strategic Growth Manager, Anglian Water Looking after water can help us all The water cycle is an example of a natural circular economy, with used water ultimately being recycled back to the environment and for further use by people and businesses. Yet too often we take the availability of water

Opinion Piece by Julia Park, Head of Housing Research, Levitt Bernstein Finding the right balance  These are, without doubt, extraordinary times. We will need a period of reflection before making long-lasting changes to our way of life, but it is already clear that a re-evaluation of how we live, work and interact with those around

Opinion Piece by Erin Walsh Homes for Healthy Ageing: the role of innovation  The social and economic impact of COVID-19 across the UK (and indeed the whole world) is truly unprecedented. It has also been hard-hitting demographically, not least for our elderly population, whose vulnerability to the pandemic has been exposed in the starkest terms.

Opinion Piece by Dr Dorte Rich Jørgensen Learn from COVID-19 for Climate Change Crisis Your invitation to join the ‘Great Transition’ towards living within planetary limits For the COVID-19 pandemic, not much was prepared to deal with it. Yet the crisis showed what accelerated responses are possible when acting with urgency. Examples are working from

Opinion Piece by Will Kirkman The sustainable home in the age of consumerism Modern, developer-built homes can be substandard, unsuitable for your needs or even a health hazard. Whilst doubts are cast over our faith in safe food, clear-air and benevolent technology, the focus is beginning to shift towards our castle and the place we

Opinion Piece by Michael Walters The changing face of office space A global pandemic, a UK national lockdown and a seismic shift to daily lives and what people considered normal, be it where and how we work, how we shop, where we live, how we travel and how we best support our day to day

Opinion Piece by Tom Reynolds The Prime Minister’s proclamation that the UK will “Build Build Build” to recovery provides both opportunities and challenges for the construction industry and its supply chain. The opportunities are obvious – if Boris Johnson delivers on his aspiration there will be a massive uptick in demand for the whole sector.

Opinion Piece by Mark Elton “It’s not the despair. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand!” Designers involved in the retrofit of our existing buildings, a group once christened the ‘retrofitterati’, will have felt that sense of hope  for a sustainable retrofit industry before, only to see those dreams fade away

Opinion Piece by Elaine Toogood Concrete: let’s separate the carbon facts from the fiction As we collectively begin to map our recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, the ways the UK will achieve the target of net-zero carbon by 2050 is coming into sharper focus.  The UK built environment sector’s aspirations to ‘Build Back Better’ are