Sustainability assessment

Ground & Water have utilised information within the Highways England Carbon Tool Guidance, Government Carbon Factors Report 2020, ICE V3 and the Bath Inventory Version 2.0 (2011) to produce a bespoke embodied carbon tool for foundations and remediation.

This allows the embodied carbon of an 18m deep piled foundation to be compared to a 2.0m deep, by 1.0m wide traditional footing and allows you to decide which is the most sustainable approach.

The tool allows you to evaluate the embodied carbon in a decision to install gas membranes, but also to install a 600mm capping instead of a 300mm Topsoil capping.

It allows you to determine the positive impact that use of the Definition of Waste Code of Practice (DoWCoP) can have on your earthworks. What is the carbon benefit of re-using 1000m³ of soil instead of importing it onto site?

Further decisions can therefore be Cost/Benefit balanced, with the benefit to the overall environment included within the design.

We will include a basic sustainability evaluation as standard within our reports, comparing typical pile length with typical traditional footing depth, this sustainability assessment can be expanded to look at the impact of the piling mat, No. of houses, and the m² area of footing, for a detailed site wide assessment.

It may be possible to link this with Civil & Structural Engineering tools, like the Highways England Carbon Tool or The Structural Carbon Tool Version 2 as it is understood that Embodied Carbon Assessments from Civil/Structural Engineers may use similar tools and carbon factors.