Elementa Becomes Signatories: UK Building Services Engineers Declare Climate & Biodiversity Emergency

Over 20 building service engineering firms have now joined Elementa as signatories of Building Service Engineers Declare

This Declaration complements the recent Architect’s Declare commitment to sustainable and regenerative building design. By signing, Elementa and a growing number of other firms, are making a statement of intent to fight the impending climate and biodiversity emergency that is overtaking the planet.

The construction industry is a major contributor of carbon emissions to the environment. Therefore, it carries a significant responsibility to ensure the future health of the planet.

“For everyone working in the construction industry, meeting the needs of our society without breaching the earth’s ecological boundaries will demand a paradigm shift in our behaviour. Together with our clients, we will need to commission, design and maintain buildings, cities, and infrastructures as indivisible components of a larger, constantly regenerating and self-sustaining system in balance with the natural world.” – excerpt from Building Services Declare.

Construction makes an essential contribution to the modern world, however, it also has a harmful effect on our environment. Many in the construction industry have already been working for years on developing sustainable technology and practices to mitigate these harmful effects. One of these organisations is the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI), which was initiated by Elementa. LETI has been advising the Greater London Authority (GLA) on setting the London Plan development policies. These changes to the policy will help reduce energy wastage and promote sustainable building strategies, focusing on real outcomes from data-driven design.

“Since supporting the GLA re-write of the London Plan, we’ve now been able to go back to several of our clients and reduce their building’s carbon footprint. By replacing older, combustion focused combined heat and power system strategies with much more carbon-efficient air source heat pump solutions that are tailored to more focused performance-related outcomes. In some instances, this has taken the over-all carbon savings from an estimated 20%, up to approximately 45%, while also reducing system capacities by up to 50%. This gives back real benefits in terms of net lettable area as well as reducing the cost and material volume put into the building’s infrastructure. A large number of firms, signing the Declaration with us is a great encouragement to continue our research into ever more sustainable engineering practices.” – Rob Harris, Principal

This declaration exists with the firm support of the Happold Foundation. The foundation is dedicated to using engineering skills and experience to make a positive impact on people’s lives. We hope that our fellow signatories, collaborating partners, and clients all also recognise the urgency of the actions needed to turn this emergency around. We are positive about the future and with such large numbers of companies taking part in this initiative, we know that the aims and desires of this declaration can be achieved.