As a major construction project, the London 2012 Games will use a huge range of different materials. Some of these can have significant sustainability implications. In this case study we look at the commitments that have been made around the use of more sustainable construction materials. This includes where the Commission has recommended that policies to be created for certain materials and how London 2012 has responded.
Commitments
The ODA Sustainable Development Strategy and LOCOG’s Sustainable Sourcing Code set out four sustainability considerations when sourcing materials. These are:
- Responsible sourcing
- Use of secondary materials
- Minimising embodied impacts
- Healthy materials
Recycled content
In their Sustainable Development Strategy, the ODA committed to achieving at least 20 percent recycled content by value in their venues and at least 25 percent recycled content by volume of aggregate used. As of March 2011, performance is in excess of these targets. This is partly through the use of products identified by the Waste and Resources Action Programme as “quick wins”. These are products made from recycled materials that can be easily used in place of products made from virgin materials. The performance on recycled aggregates is helped by use of aggregate coming from demolition materials on site.
Concrete
The ODA has set up innovative sitewide contracts for a number of key commodities and services. An example of this is for concrete. Concrete is produced on site, using recycled content and with the raw materials being supplied to the site by rail. This contributes to a 42 percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to the average concrete used in the UK.
Timber
The ODA have committed to using 100 percent sustainably sourced timber – using timber certified by either the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). They are currently on track to meet this target. To do this they established a timber panel of approved suppliers to control the supply of all timber for construction on the Olympic Park. All tier one contractors are using the panel to source their timber. The Velodrome team has even obtained sustainably sourced Siberian Pine for the track.
The timber arriving on site is subject to a range of controls and assurance processes to ensure that it is certified and has appropriate audit trails, known as ‘chain of custody’. This has been a fairly resource intensive process. However, it has been successful in identifying a small number of deliveries of unverified timber and action being taken to resolve this.
The Commission applauds the ODA for putting this range of measures in place to ensure that the timber being used in construction comes from certified sustainable sources. The mechanisms for achieving this are to be part of the learning legacy being developed by the ODA and will provide the opportunity for other projects to follow them.
The Olympic Village has required the use of FSC certified timber, with the only exceptions being where reclaimed timber is being used. They have had processes in place to manage and assure the timber used on site and are currently seeking to obtain project certification for the whole development.
LOCOG’s timber supply chain is more complex with much of it relating to furniture and finished products rather than timber for construction. However, as a private company, LOCOG is able to specify named product standards. In their Sustainable Sourcing Code LOCOG have committed to using FSC certified timber except ‘where it can be justifiably demonstrated that it is not possible to supply items from FSC certified sources then timber and timber products which are able to be verified with appropriate documentation in respect to their origin and legality are acceptable’. Timber and timber derived products are identified during the kick off stages of procurement and monitored throughout the tendering process.
LOCOG has identified that its main challenge will be to develop an adequate system to check receipt of timber goods across the numerous delivery points at Games-venues and logistics depots. As the timber assurance processes put in place by the ODA demonstrate, this could potentially be resource intensive. This will be addressed as part of LOCOG’s contract management processes.
Polyvinylchloride (PVC)
In our 2007 and 2008 Annual Reviews the Commission raised the issues of how environmentally sensitive materials such as PVC would be handled by London 2012. In our 2008 report we set out how the ODA was expecting to need around 10 hectares of plastic tensile fabric, enough to wrap the largest tower at Canary Wharf twice over.
In response to our recommendations London 2012 developed a policy on the use of PVC, which was published in May 2009.
This policy has helped move the industry forward with new phthalate-free PVC being developed in order to provide the wraps for several venues.
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFC)
In our 2007 and 2008 Annual Reviews the Commission raised the issues of how the use of HFC gases would be managed and preferably eliminated, due to their environmental impacts. Commonly used HFC gases for cooling systems have a global warming potential around 2,000 times greater than carbon dioxide. We recommended that “The London 2012 Sustainability Group should ensure that substances with high Global Warming Potential such as HFC are eliminated where possible.”
In response to this London 2012 developed a policy on the use of HFC. This was agreed by the Olympic Board in June 2009. It states that “HFCs must not be used where other safe, technically feasible, cost effective, energy efficient and more environmentally acceptable alternatives exist”.
As a result of this policy the planned cooling system in the Aquatic Centre was changed from an HFC-based system to an ammonia-based system. On the basis of a Total Equivalent Warming Impact (TEWI) study, the ODA decided to use an HFC-based system in the Main Stadium. This was because alternative systems required further construction work that would result in higher overall embodied carbon.
