For more than 25 years, SCI has been involved in the rapidly evolving sustainability agenda, representing the steel construction sector on many important developments including Part L, BREEAM, embodied carbon, waste reduction and the circular economy.

While issues have waxed and waned, particularly as government priorities have changed, the recent urgency to address climate change has brought sustainability issues firmly back into the spotlight for the construction industry.

Although steel-making today is carbon intensive, steel producers are implementing decarbonisation strategies to meet net-zero targets by 2050. While these new technologies are scaled up and commercialised, demand side measures have an important role to play on the trajectory to net zero. This is where SCI’s expertise can help designers and product manufacturers deliver sustainable, low carbon solutions to their clients.

In addition to our enduring ethos of delivering safe, efficient structures, recent SCI sustainability experience includes:

• Design for deconstruction and reuse of steel structures

• Use of high strength structural steels to reduce weight

• Carbon foot-printing of steel fabricators and manufacturers

• Embodied carbon comparisons of steel construction systems against competing systems

• Thermal modelling of steel construction systems, products and details

• SCI Assessment of new systems, products, software, etc.

The continued success of the UK steel construction sector depends on all parts of the supply chain to do their bit to deliver a net zero built environment. What is your organisation doing? If you’re not part of the solution then you will increasingly be seen as part of the problem.