University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

performances, e.g. cement production, carbon emissions, how suppliers of aggregates
deal with landscape issues or the environmental performance of concrete additives.
In the manufacturing process, precast concrete does consume energy, but its more
energy intensive raw materials (i.e. cement) contribute the larger CO2 emissions and
impacts. The entire life-cycle of precast concrete products produce a range of
impacts from all the various production processes to end of-life, i.e. from sourcing
and extraction of raw materials to the final use and disposal stage. These are areas of
particular concern and will be addressed later in this paper, after a more detailed
examination of progress within the industry.
As the precast concrete trade association, BPCF is showing commitment to achieve a
more sustainable precast concrete sector. According to the first sustainability report
for the precast concrete industry (Holton, 2005), the precast concrete industry
recorded major achievements on sustainability from 1999 with the formation of
Environment, Health and Safety committees to provide a pan-sector approach in
dealing with important sustainability issues facing the industry. By 2001, the
Concrete Targets Award scheme was launched. This scheme was launched in a rapid
response to the Government’s ‘Revitalising Health and Safety’ initiative (HSE, 2009)
and was followed by The Concrete Targets (CT 2010) scheme in 2006, to improve
the health and safety performance of the industry by 50% reduction of RIDDOR
(Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations) reportable
accidents and lost time injury by 2010.
In 2002, the best practice awards were initiated to promote excellence and recognise
members that had made progress on innovation, health, safety and the environment.
In the same year, BPCF joined the DEFRA and DTI ‘Pioneers Group’ to demonstrate
its intention to develop a sector sustainability strategy for the precast concrete
industry. As a result, in 2003, BPCF’s council approved sponsorship of an
Engineering Doctorate (EngD) project in the Department of Civil and Building
Engineering, Loughborough University to develop a sector sustainability strategy for
the precast concrete industry which started in 2004. In 2005, a joint approach to
sustainability from the cement and concrete industry was facilitated by the Concrete
Sector Sustainability Working Group. Finally, a Sustainability programme was
approved by the BPCF Council in 2007 to boost performance across the whole
precast concrete industry on sustainability to include:
� Key Performance Indicators
� Sustainability Charter
� Certification Scheme
� Best Practice Forum
� Objective, Indicators and Targets for improvement
The sustainability charter was purposely launched to engender commitment of all
BPCF member companies to a designed set of sustainability guided principles (BPCF
and Construction News, 2008). The year 2008 saw an industry consultation and
charter audits to encourage BPCF’s member to go beyond legislation and to take
deliberate actions in making their products and operations more sustainable. As can
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