Boels survey highlights cost of sustainability in construction

Photo: JU.STOCKER via Adobe Stock

More than half of the construction industry in the Netherlands believe that making construction more sustainable costs more than it brings in.

According to the Boels Rental Construction Index survey, carried out by Markteffect, 57% of 404 Dutch construction professionals believe the cost of making construction sustainable outweighs the impact on revenues.

However, despite the cost implications the survey found that more than half of companies (54%) are actively reducing their carbon emissions.

It highlighted five areas in which companies commonly use to bring their carbon emissions down, with 57% choosing to recycle their building waste to reduce environmental impact.

At the same time, 42% of respondents said they select machines and tools with a longer lifespan, delaying the need to replace them and thus reducing emissions.

35% of companies choose machines and tools that have “(near-) zero emissions”, such as solar-powered electric machines.

29% of companies are choosing to use sustainable building materials, such as bio-based or recycled materials, to reduce emissions, while 24% compensate for their CO2 emissions through a variety of offsetting mechanisms.

Although Boels said that the findings are a “step in the right direction”, it added that there is “always room for improvement.” That sentiment is somewhat split in the survey, with 54% of responses believing that enough is being done.

In terms of what can be done to improve sustainability, the use of recycled or bio-based materials (49%) and energy-efficient equipment (47%) where among the top reponses for activities that could be improved.

The use of fossil fuels (38%), drive to reduce transport movements (37%) and reducing the number of resources (19%) were also highlighted.