Urgently accelerating change

Everyone involved in infrastructure needs to ask why the barriers and culture in the construction industry are preventing action, in spite of serious intent, and what can we do about it. As long ago as 2010, the UK government's Low Carbon Construction Innovation & Growth Team pointed out that

Many will have their own views and experiences on the extent to which these systemic problems have been addressed, but in many circumstances business-as-usual (BAU) prevails, increasing the inertia that must be overcome.

Chapter 4 explored barriers to change and identified key areas for responses

We now examine some of these in more detail, suggest effective actions to overcome them and how change can be brought about at the organisational level of companies and institutions, and suggest the levers and strategies by which this can be achieved. Finally, we focus on how to create a culture of innovation by working within prevailing norms of construction sector organisations. Individual responsibility for driving change and the role each engineer plays in the process is dealt with in Chapter 10.