Constructing a path to clean growth

In the penultimate article in partnership with TheBusinessDesk.com supporting the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership’s good growth in distinctive places Local Industrial Strategy ambition, James Newton, architectural design consultant and community housing enabler in York, explains how the construction industry can lead a transformation towards a carbon neutral circular economy.

The construction industry is a major driver of growth in York, North Yorkshire and East Riding, with a projected spend of £1.3bn per annum for the next five years, 43% of that in housing, to deliver the 100,000 new homes projected by Local Plans.

Yet the construction industry is also one of the key areas where a transformation to clean growth is yet to be realised. Much of this comes down to cost. Sustainable building is expensive. We already have an affordable housing challenge in our region, switching to sustainable materials could exacerbate this. The industry also creates a significant amount of waste, a material output of lost productivity.

We want to enable the construction industry to lead a transformation towards a carbon neutral circular economy, where affordable, sustainable housing impacts positively on a business bottom line.

It’s not news to say that housing is in demand. Yet unlike other demand led sectors, housing developers don’t typically engage in regular and meaningful feedback from the ‘market’. Whilst the perception appears to be that end users want mock Tudor style houses on housing estates where lifestyles are primarily dominated by the car, this seems to me anachronistic, stuck in time.

Yes, families are still buying these homes, but do they have any other choice? And if we think about how engaged young people are today in issues around sustainability and climate change – these are the house buyers of the future. We need to ensure we start now to shape the market to meet their demands.

Houses built from brick, block and toxic insulation materials are currently cheaper to build than houses made from sustainable and natural materials, in part due to the fact that the evidence of demand for the latter isn’t yet in place. Yet we do have mechanisms in place that could support developers to project demands on future builds and develop a supply chain for more sustainable materials that could eventually bring the costs in line with current spend.

Working with local authorities, developers could engage with future residents so they can help to shape the kinds of communities and homes they want to see adopted. Local authorities have been criticised for years for their planning consultations but things are definitely changing for the better. For example, the huge amounts of community action that has targeted planning for future homes and businesses on the York Central site has set a new direction that others can follow.

Do you agree? Get involved by giving your view on the YNYER LEP website.

Community led housing will take a significant role in future changes. Community land trusts up and down the country are forming now to draw people together in their local communities in order to map out and shape neighbourhood plans.

Invariably, sustainability is given higher priority than cost. In York, YorSpace came together around the ideas of sustainability, community and affordability. Community led housing is not typically accessible to a lot of people as cost is an issue.

Sustainable features and affordability are constantly at loggerheads in this scenario so we are having to make difficult decisions and find ways to be creative in accessing finance, such as developing share investment opportunities to reduce costs and adopt ownership models that warrant grant funding.

Costs of sustainable housing have to be measured against the long-term savings that will be made against significantly reduced running costs. We could do more to better understand and simplify these equations to help house buyers to understand their investments.

When I worked with Native Architects, we did a research project with Cambridge University’s Judge Business School to explore and test the market for developers, housing associations and councils to build with bio-based materials. A cost comparison between a single standard brick and block cavity built house versus a timber frame, hempcrete build showed the sustainable build represented a 5% extra over cost.

The problem in convincing contractors to adopt bio-based materials is unfortunately that the economies of scales currently in place for standard materials is too hard to walk away from because in reality the extra over costs are, in fact, much greater than 5%.

Unless we can employ creative thinking and leadership to develop the economies of scale and supply chains that make this viable for house builders, the unfortunate truth is that the chicken and egg scenario around costs and market demands for sustainable housing is likely to remain hugely problematic.

Our Bio-based Circular Construction Yorkshire project is a partnership between Yorkshire-based businesses seeking to understand how we can plug the gap between building costs, whilst simultaneously supporting our local economy. We’re engaging farmers to develop new revenue by growing low carbon materials and working with York College to develop the skills resource to build homes from locally sourced, natural materials.

The city of York and wider region have the opportunity to learn from projects like the CITU Climate Innovation District in Leeds, and put these concepts into practice on local build sites, using a community-led approach centred on ethical principles.

Do you agree? Get involved by giving your view on the YNYER LEP website.