JOHN Easton, head of Archial Sustainable Futures, the respected research, development and advice consultancy, and a member of the global Ingenium Group of companies, will highlight a lack of skills as a key challenge to the construction sector at the launch of ICARB (the Initiative for Carbon Accounting) at Holyrood today (Thursday 24 February).
The event will mark the formal transition from SCAG (Scottish Carbon Accounting Group) to ICRAB, a group of academics, politicians and consultants working to create a set of transparent, consistent and accurate rules for Carbon Accounting.
Mr Easton said: “My role as a Carbon Trust Advice consultant allows me to see first-hand where the challenges lie for the construction sector in delivering to the low carbon agenda at project level.
“The main problem that we face is a lack of skills among traditionally experienced practitioners who do not have the knowledge and understanding about carbon counting with which we are equipping our new graduates and whose established thinking and methods limit the effectiveness of those new graduates whose work they manage and direct in daily practice.
“The lack of integrated working between disciplines within design teams is the other frequent cause of failure. The ‘design silos’ mentality still prevails.
“What we need more fundamentally, however, is to re-skill our design teams across the construction sector as a whole to understand CO2 as a currency with which to account for building construction and operation – and to do that far more quickly than reliance on emerging new graduates would do alone.”
ICARB aims to provide a forum for the development of a consensually agreed language and rule book for carbon accounting that is relevant, complete, consistent, transparent and accurate and enables compatibility of approaches across sectors.
ENDS
For further information please contact John Easton T: 0141 204 6500
Issued on behalf of Archial by Liquorice Media tel 0141 561 4018 www.liquorice-media.com
Date 24 February 2011
Notes to Editors
- Delivering global building solutions, the 900 employees of the privately held Ingenium Group of companies offer an extensive range of architectural, engineering, land use and development planning, interior design, project management, construction, design-build and partnership services through offices in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Middle East, and Asia. It has a broad and diverse portfolio of completed work within the commercial, government, transportation and lifestyle sectors, comprising some of the largest building projects in the world. The Ingenium Group member company brands include Archial, Alsop Sparch, NORR, Giffels, CION and Westpro. For more information: www.theingeniumgroup.com.
- John Easton is a Carbon Consultant accredited by The Carbon Trust to provide Low Carbon Buildings Design Advice and is a member of the Carbon Trust’s Consultant Pool in Scotland for Public Procurement. He is also licensed to provide BREEAM Education and Healthcare assessments.
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