Construction campaign to put spotlight on air pollution

A major construction industry awareness campaign will focus on the causes and impact of air pollution from construction activities, in a bid to improve the performance of the sector.

The Considerate Constructors Scheme’s ‘Spotlight on…air pollution’ awareness campaign for 2018 will promote best practice case studies and research to businesses in the construction industry on measures to mitigate air pollution from construction projects.

The Considerate Constructors Scheme will launch the Spotlight on…Air Pollution campaign in 2018

CCS is a non-profit organisation founded by organisations within the construction industry to improve its image.

The Scheme’s ‘Spotlight on…’ initiative is as series of campaigns that aim to look at different areas associated with improving the image of construction, and looks to raise awareness among registered sites, companies and suppliers on how they can help with the issue.

The organisation is currently calling for contributions from industry to help shape the ‘Spotlight on…air pollution’ campaign.

Previous ‘Spotlight on…’ campaigns have included encouraging women into the construction industry, understanding the risk posed by illegal construction workers, awareness of drug and alcohol issues in the construction industry and occupational cancers associated with construction activities.

Survey

Ahead of the launch of its air pollution campaign, CCS has opened a survey to gauge industry understanding of the issue, which will shape the output of the campaign, which is due to launch in early 2018.

CCS is calling for contributions to the survey from construction businesses by 15 December — which also seeks to understand how the construction industry currently approaches air quality.

Considerate Constructors Scheme chief executive Edward Hardy, said: “The ‘Spotlight on… air pollution’ campaign aims to raise industry awareness of the importance of minimising construction’s impact on air pollution, providing information about the scale of the issue and how to address it.“

The need to address air pollution emissions from construction activities was highlighted in a report published by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) last month (see airqualitynews.com story).

ICE’s report outlined a series of recommendations including increased focus on air pollution during the planning process, efforts to reduce emissions from non-road mobile machinery, and increased focus on the impact of construction delivery vehicles.

ICE also committed to work with the Considerate Constructors Scheme to make air quality management good industry practice.

The report concluded: “By including air quality measures in these best practice schemes, the industry can help monitor local air quality and reduce the emissions from sites. This will make construction sites healthier places to work and help to record the impact of construction on air quality.”

Related Links
CCS – Spotlight on Air Pollution Survey