Activities on construction sites are directly responsible for 5.5 percent of worldwide CO2 emissions, predominantly through the combustion of fossil fuels to power machinery and equipment. Across Europe, the construction sector in urban centres contributes to local air pollution and the global carbon footprint. This must be addressed in order to meet cities’ overarching carbon emission reduction targets.
Cities, which largely concentrate the negative externalities caused by construction works (air quality, noise, congestion, etc.), can be frontrunners in the promotion of cleaner construction machinery, with which they can also achieve improved quality of life for citizens.
The transition from traditional construction machinery to fossil-free or zero-emission solutions requires a collaborative approach between construction clients, contractors, and machine manufacturers, among others.
In order to accelerate market innovation in this sector, a number of cities have joined a working group on Zero-Emission Construction Sites as part of the Big Buyers Initiative. These cities are committed to act using the levers available to them to promote low- and zero-emission solutions for building and infrastructure works in order to ultimately reduce the carbon footprint of construction. They have implemented pilot projects using fossil-free and zero-emission construction machinery, and have ambitious plans for rolling this out further in the coming years. These plans are a key component in the cities’ goals to drastically reduce carbon emissions. Some examples of this inspiring work include:
ICLEI Member Oslo (Norway)
The City of Oslo has committed to ensuring all public construction sites are zero-emission by 2025, and that all construction sites in the city are zero-emission by 2030. Fossil-free works has been a minimum requirement for public construction procurement in the city since 2017. Overall, Oslo has a target of reducing CO2 emissions by 95 percent by 2030, as compared to 2009 levels.
An ongoing pilot project at Olav Vs Street, outside the City Hall, is using fully electric construction machinery. Several other public construction projects are under development, which will include zero-emission construction machinery, for example projecst at a kindergarten, a youth centre and a nursing home, a sports facility, a public bath, and several housing and infrastructure projects. This is a result of the introduction of new standard climate and environmental requirements for Oslo’s construction sites, where construction companies compete for public projects based on environmental performance (zero-emission construction).
ICLEI Member Copenhagen (Denmark)
All public construction sites in the City of Copenhagen must be carbon neutral by 2030. The city’s own substantial fleet of non-road mobile machinery must be fossil-free by 2025.
Work has begun on a series of civil works and construction projects in the city, where all machines up to 2.5t must be electric, and machines above that size should preferably be either electric or biofuel vehicles. A series of further projects are planned for next year, using a similar approach regarding procurement demand but with different methods.
ICLEI Member Helsinki (Finland)
Helsinki strives to become carbon neutral by 2035. In line with the Finnish green deal, all public construction sites should be 100 percent fossil-free by 2025. By the end of 2030, this will be extended to include machinery and heavy vehicles to and from sites.
In addition, the city made the decision that all new infrastructure sites and roadworks will be fossil-free and low-emission. The value for these contracts is approximately 143 million EUR for 2021.
Four pilot fossil-free public works projects are ongoing in the city, which require all small machines (≤4kW) to be electric, and larger machines to be HVO-diesel, and to meet stage IV emission standards. Vehicles transporting to the sites must also meet emission standards. In one of these projects, emission-free solutions are being tested with four electric machines working on site. Further pilots are expected in 2021, with the aim of extending the pilots to housing construction works.
ICLEI Member Budapest (Hungary)
The City of Budapest has already set its climate related objectives in a Climate Strategy; however, it is also developing a plan for achieving carbon neutrality in response to having declared a Climate Emergency in 2019. Zero-emission construction machinery has yet to break through in the Hungarian market. But, the city administration is now holding market dialogue sessions with suppliers in the hope of establishing a series of zero-emission construction pilot projects, mainly taken on by the public utility companies of Budapest (e.g. water works, road operator, transport etc.). Budapest has allocated around 572,000 EUR in its budget for 2021 for pilot interventions, including zero-emission construction sites.
This is just one of three working groups that are part of the Big Buyers' Initiative; the other two groups have explored circular construction materials, and heavy-duty electric vehicles. Each working group recently published lessons learnt reports, which summarise their main challenges, approaches and outlooks for procurement of sustainable solutions in each focus area, including practical case studies and example award criteria. All of these resources can be accessed here.
To move beyond pilot projects, urban stakeholders, with local authorities at the helm, will have to continue and intensify current efforts to accelerate the low-carbon construction agenda. This commitment must be accompanied by the decarbonisation of electricity production, without which the benefits of electric over bio-or traditional fuels will inevitably remain limited.
Keeping in mind this continued need, the European Commission’s DG Grow announced a follow-up initiative, Big Buyers for Climate & Environment (BBCE). The BBCE will build upon the success of the Big Buyers Initiative and use a similar format, with four working groups of public entities focused on procurement of a specific sustainable product or service in which aggregated demand of big buyers can push for market innovation. The BBCE will begin with a bottom-up needs assessment in winter 2020, and the established working groups will collaborate over the next two years.
In other words, there are opportunities for other procurers to join this movement.
For more information and to access all of the resources described above, click here.