Opinion Piece by Ana Ruiton, Mott MacDonald Digital Transformation to build back better “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 come. But what it

Opinion Piece by Justin Peckham, 540 WORLD 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. Put simply greenwashing is consumer deception. And with consumers in the UK

Opinion Piece by Dr Don McLean, IES The Three Levels of “How” to Decarbonise 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. Level 1Ask, at the first and

Opinion Piece by Julie Godefroy CIBSE 10-Point plan for a green industrial revolution  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 country.   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 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. So far, they

Opinion Piece by Grant Findlay, Strategy Director, Sir Robert McAlpine How strategy, data and collaboration can facilitate the path to post-COVID recovery 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 a much broader

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

Opinion Piece by Dr Oliver Jones Our sector has played an important role in the response to the pandemic. From the design and delivery of healthcare facilities, to urban interventions designed to accommodate new behaviours and stimulate economic recovery. But we have a much bigger part to play if we are to deliver a greener,

Opinion Piece by Paul Foulkes Collaboration – where the engineer can lead the field Being able to manage multiple buildings or departments with different occupancy requirements, optimising energy use and monitoring and scheduling maintenance is becoming a normal requirement for managing effective, healthy premises. This can only be achieved using the correct hardware, an effective

Opinion Piece by Simon Sturgis Glass facades – An obsolete typology Glass facades for buildings have been a staple of commercial architecture since the 1950s, and the advent of two New York buildings in particular: the Seagram Building, designed by Mies Van de Rohe, and the United Nations Secretariat Building, designed by Oscar Niemeyer and

Opinion Piece by Peter Barker Look internally to fuel your digital growth With the downturn in global markets as a result of the health crisis we have been battling over the past few months, many organisations are confronting the daunting challenge of rebuilding their business in very crowded and competitive environments, with narrowing profit margins

Opinion Piece by David Hopkins Biophilia, Brexit and Buildings The pandemic has certainly put us back in touch with nature: there’s less pollution, we’re able to hear birds sing, and there’s a growing appreciation of the importance of biodiversity in our surroundings. The Biophilia movement in construction is also happily gaining ground. Greater use of

Opinion Piece by David Philp Serious about transformation Our Built environment has a powerful influence on all of our lives from enhancing well-being, providing essential infrastructure and impacting on our national economy. How we define, create, and shape our built environment should therefore be a priority for all of all of us especially in the

Opinion Piece by Rebecca De Cicco Creating a mirror of the world: The evolution, development and documentation around Digital Twins and the National Digital Twin (NDT) in the United Kingdom.   Based on the work I have been doing in the smart cities/BIM Space, I felt it was important to also include support and research around

Opinion Piece by Chaline Tamrin Church, MA Interior Architect & Designer Chaline Tamrin Church – MA Interior Architect & Designer Director, FreeSpace Design (Healthy Interior Architecture), Lecturer & Brand Specialist, Founding Partner of 540 WORLD and Ergotec Health. Covid has resensitized us. Our heightened sense of other – of the planet – of workers and

Opinion Piece by Ian Rippin, CEO of MCS The Future of Clean Heat – Will a move away from RHI work? MCS, and the industry it works with, face interesting times. The UK domestic renewable energy sector has radically changed since our organisation was formed in 2007. Since then nearly 1.2 million homes have been

Opinion Piece by Guest Editor – Bill Dunster With probably up to 50,000 deaths anticipated in the UK and more possible with a second wave – we all have a duty to try and turn this huge sacrifice into positive social change. We all have an imperative to turn a negative into a positive opportunity