Tuesday 10.30 - 12.30
FIDIC WorkshopSustainable Development: Initiatives

Sustainable Management of Construction Materials

Barbara Gamper
SKS Ingenieure AG, Consulting EngineersZurich, Switzerland

Organisations

Eco-Forum of Associations of SCIC, founded 1997comprising the four groups:

Founded in 1997, the organisation of an Eco-Forum was started by many associations from the Swiss Construction Industry Conference (SCIC). The aim was to harmonise the numerous ecological guidelines and different laws in each canton or large city, and to strive for a better image of the construction industry as a whole. Each of the four groups of the umbrella organisation formulated their environmental problems in daily business with clients and authorities, and it was very interesting to see the differences between the groups which comprise Planning and Consulting, Main Construction Industry, Subsidiary Building Trades, and Suppliers.

At the same time there was a most fruitful cooperation between all the actors of the construction sector going on in Switzerland in the fields of quality management, public and private professional building owners and building organisations. Together they published the guidelines "Quality Management: Swiss Building Construction". Based on this experience, an analogous organisation was constituted: the Platform for Sustainable Construction.

The Platform for Sustainable Construction coordinates several working groups spanning strategy and basic principles, through to implementation, training and public and internal communication. But actually the first and the last issue worked best. Concerning internal communication, many long but productive discussions, mainly on new environmental instruments, were held, and if necessary special workshops were organised for critical subjects.

Eco-Forum of Associations of SCIC, founded 1997comprising the four groups:

• planning and consulting
• main construction industry
• subsidiary building trades
• suppliers

Platform for Sustainable Construction

= Construction Industry, Building Owners, Authorities

• Swiss Construction Industry Conference, SCIC
• Private Developers Interest Group
• Co-ordination Group of Federal Services concerning Building and Properties
• Co-ordination Group for Ecological Building
• Co-ordination Group for Ecological Construction

The Project:

From the strategic group, a new project was initiated on Sustainable Management of Building Construction Materials.

This project had three motivations:

• to initiate a sustainable overall management of materials
• to meet the demand for basic documents
• to create a model for projects of the platform

Energy and materials are the key issues for the future of new designs and rebuilding: optimising the use of the available primary and recycled materials are key questions. But in practice, concepts as well as incentives to reuse construction materials are lacking in Switzerland.

Tasks for a sustainable management

• to provide an overview on market potentials and incentives
• to establish an integrated view and assessment to close loops
• to lobby for the acceptance of recycled products
• to support harmonised guidelines
• to win + gather actors, who work together along the same lines

Aims of the Project

• to understand the market situation + opportunities
• to eliminate barriers
• to develop fostering strategies and measures
• to foster collaboration of authorities, clients and construction industry
• to foster + ensure an exchange of information,experience, education and training

Longterm Goals of the Project

The ultimate goal is to establish a network to use synergies, to facilitate contacts and to ensure benefits for all actors in building construction.

• to establish a network: people, organisations, not IT only to be able to maintain this
• www.baustoffmanagement.ch is planned to start by end of September 01

The project is supported by the member associations of the platform, and it started in early 2001. The network shall be established by 2002, and from then on we hope to be able to continuously maintain it.

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