ECA
Paul Reeve, Director of CSR, ECA.
CLIENTS AND OTHER BUYERS ARE INCREASINGLY LOOKING FOR SUPPLIERS’ CARBON CREDENTIALS DURING PREQUALIFICATION AND TENDERING, SAYS ECA DIRECTOR OF CSR PAUL REEVE… Spotlight shifting to M&E embodied carbon
Commercial and public sector clients are beginning to ask designers and suppliers if they can identify the embodied carbon equivalent (CO2e*) of installed M&E products. It’s part of a wider trend among clients and other buyers who are increasingly looking for suppliers’ ‘carbon credentials’ during prequalification and tendering. This growing supply chain phenomenon was addressed in a session within ECA’s autumn Net Zero Roadshow events, along with supporting ECA member guidance available in the members area of the ECA website. For example, the latest ECA guide highlights this public sector framework question for prospective suppliers: Do you work with your supply chain to accelerate the development of less carbon-intensive materials? This is a challenging tendering question,
particularly for smaller contractors. However, it’s worth pointing out from the off that firstly few contractors know – and shouldn’t be expected to know - how to work out the carbon intensity of what they design and install, and secondly the value to a client of seeing even some information in this area, as opposed to none, may be significant. Not surprisingly, ECA’s new guide points to manufacturers as the prime source of useful product embodied carbon information. As a product customer, you can ask reputable suppliers whether they have: • any current information on the embodied carbon of products, and • a plan to reduce the embodied carbon of products, or any recent evidence that this has already been achieved? It’s fair to say that the responses to these enquiries will be mixed, but the more requests manufacturers get for this
information, the more likely they will be to produce it. And some good practice is already here: manufacturers such as Marshall Tufflex provide clear embodied carbon figures for leading ranges of PVC trunking. They calculate this using the much-vaunted CIBSE document TM65 – Embodied carbon in building services. TM65 offers manufacturers and designers a simplified route to evaluating the embodied carbon in various M&E products, using material sourcing and manufacturing process data. Lighting the way to lower carbon… Since August 2023, the CO2e of lighting can be assessed and presented more widely using CIBSE TM65.2 – Embodied carbon in building services: lighting. Leading lighting manufacturers are
“TM65 offers manufacturers and designers a simplified route to evaluating the embodied carbon in various M&E products.”
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