I need to gain the necessary background of Econstructionality in preparation for an Environmental Auditing Course, please provide me with a succinct summary of the following: ECONSTRUCTIONALITY Description
ECONSTRUCTIONALITY is a “design and build” construction company operating on a national scale. Their central Head Office is the site scheduled for an internal EMS audit, together with a sample of its construction sites. The Head Office is situated in a new industrial park, its site is about 10 hectares (approx: 25 acres). ECONSTRUCTIONALITY specialises in building bridges and large speciality buildings such as hospitals, airports, railway stations as well as the more standard roads and office buildings. ECONSTRUCTIONALITY also develop some of their sites on a speculative basis to lease out before selling off a complete site. Hence they also act as landlords leasing out buildings or parts of buildings. At the moment they have a lot of building space available and the Purchasing Department are responsible for an important project to increase occupation of vacant buildings, particularly by reducing rates to local companies.
Head Office
The industrial park was designed and built by ECONSTRUCTIONALITY in conjunction with a main developer and is in an attractive part of the countryside. They lease their building from the developer. The site is a reclaimed landfill site. Originally the area was used for gravel extraction which was then landfilled and has now been built on. There is a golf course with a number of lakes and ponds on the park. The Head Office is a large modern office block with efficient energy consumption. There are various regulations for the site covering water pollution, solid waste controls, energy, refrigerant gases and site run-off water controls. HQ houses Company Executives, Design Department with CAD, main Engineering Function, IT Support Function, Sustainable Procurement Department, Marketing, Facilities Management and Finance Department. It also has a large cafeteria and a small storage area.
Business Construction Process
Project brief → Preparation → Design Concept → Design Development → Construction → Validation & Hand over. Audit scope includes all activities managed at the ECONSTRUCTIONALITY Headquarters and construction sites.
Construction sites
ECONSTRUCTIONALITY has about 80 sites under construction at any one time. The sites are primarily in the UK but there are some overseas construction sites which do not usually number more than about 10 at any one time. Some of the sites are in areas of outstanding natural beauty, and ECONSTRUCTIONALITY is proud of their record of eco-design and construction in these sensitive areas. Sites typically generate a lot of waste, controlled through Site Plans.
Subcontractors
ECONSTRUCTIONALITY are responsible for the construction site supervision. Whilst they have their own site earth moving equipment, the majority of their on-site construction work is sub-contracted. These are identified, assessed and approved by the Purchasing Department.
Environmental issues
ECONSTRUCTIONALITY uses the BREEAM method for assessment and rating of their constructions. This sets standards for best practice in sustainable building design, construction and operation. It encourages designers, clients and others to consider about low carbon and low impact designs, minimising energy demands engendering energy efficiency and low carbon technologies. BREEAM also addresses wide-ranging sustainability issues and is designed to enable developers, designers and building managers to demonstrate the environmental credentials of their constructions to their clients, planners and other interested parties. It is therefore used increasingly by planners, developers, investment bodies, property agents, & design teams. The company owns various areas of land around the country for future building development, and it has to manage these areas according to local planning laws, these frequently stipulate the type of land conservation that is required. There are some specially designated conversation sites on some of the land it owns but not at the Head Office site. ECONSTRUCTIONALITY encourages employees to travel to work using energy-efficient transport and provides local bus transport to the employee’s homes and promotes the use of rail and bus for business related travel.