Workshop: Introducing Zero-carbon Construction Sites (WIZCS)

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Construction sites, as work places, use energy for two main purposes. The first is to provide lighting and/or heating for site offices and other site cabins; and power for office equipment, kettles, microwave ovens, hand tools, mobile telephones and other small electrical appliances. The second is to provide power for construction plant.Energy used currently on construction sites leads to substantial carbon emissions. At any one time, there are tens of thousands of construction sites in the UK and their energy demand is huge, as is the amount of carbon emissions they produce. The need to reduce carbon emissions from all aspects of human activity is universally accepted and the construction industry needs to make its contribution to reducing carbon emissions. This makes construction sites legitimate targets for efforts to reduce carbon emissions.There are initiatives driven by the Climate Change Act 2008 and European Union's Energy Performance in Buildings Directive such as the zero-carbon homes initiative that target the operation phase of construction projects. However, there is no specific effort, to date, targeted at reducing carbon emissions from construction sites that focuses on the energy used on the construction sites.This workshop is based on the idea that the construction phase of construction projects presents an unexplored area of investigation with respect to reducing carbon emissions. The workshop is primarily designed to respond to this perceived gap in the body of knowledge and introduce the idea of zero-carbon construction sites (ZCS) and plan the agenda for the diffusion of the idea, via a zero-carbon construction sites scheme (ZCSS), as a means of facilitating a step-change in reduction of carbon emissions in the construction industry.The workshop will be the first to bring together researchers interested in the intersection between construction site operations and zero-carbon energy. The researchers will include specialists in construction management, wind energy and solar energy and other low carbon or non-fossil fuel energy technologies. They will also include specialists in policy design and formulation. The workshop will bring these researchers together to interact with construction contractors and research and technology organisations as well as governmental and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations in order to define the research agenda about achieving zero-carbon construction sites.Unlike other workshops that run for a day or on consecutive days, this unique workshop will be run over two days separated by a period of two weeks. The interval between the workshop days is included in the workshop design to promote reflection and consultation about the new agenda in order to maximise understanding and support for the post-workshop activities among the key participants. This is important because post-workshop activities will be the true measures of success of the workshop.The workshop will be run using approaches such as break-out groups, open forums, brain storming and interrogative discussion. The approaches were chosen because of the potential to maximise chances of realising the envisaged impacts.