Briefing: UK's ‘green’ civil engineering schemes approach £2 billion

CEEQUAL assesses how well a project team has dealt with the environmental issues they faced. Minimum regulatory compliance equates roughly to a zero score. To receive an award, projects must score at least 25%—and an ‘excellent’ rating is achieved by exceeding 75% of the total maximum score.

The awards already made include the high-profile Twin Rivers Diversion Scheme, part of the Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 project, which gained a ‘Whole Project Award’ with a score of 92·7% after it was completed on budget and ahead of schedule. One of the more recent awards was for the site remediation for Cardiff International Sports Village—one of the largest bioremediation operations ever undertaken in the UK—which scored 91·9%.

To provide a positive influence on the activities of nearly £2 billion worth of civil engineering construction activity is a huge achievement for the awards scheme. It is also a great credit to those undertaking important civil engineering projects in the UK with the intention of improving their environmental performance.

The scheme was originally conceived as a civil engineering equivalent to the Building Research Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) for buildings, and its development was led by ICE and project-managed by my firm Crane Environmental. It is now run through CEEQUAL Ltd, a company set up for the purpose and owned by ICE, BRE, British Waterways, CIRIA, the Civil Engineering Contractors' Association, the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, Costain, Crane Environmental, Hyder Consulting, Responsible Solutions, Temple Environmental and WSP Group.

The company has a board of non-executive directors drawn from shareholders and other interested parties and the scheme is managed jointly by CIRIA and Crane Environmental, through which I act as chief executive on a consultancy basis.

The company's vision is progressively to increase the use of the CEEQUAL scheme and its principles by both clients and their project teams, so that demonstrably high environmental performance becomes an integral part of accepted good practice on civil engineering projects.

The scheme uses a points-scoring-based assessment framework, which is applicable to any civil engineering project and includes environmental aspects such as

• use of water

• use of energy

• use of land

• ecology

• landscaping

• nuisance to neighbours

• archaeology

• waste minimisation and management

• transport

• materials

• community amenity.

A CEEQUAL award publicly recognises the achievement of high environmental performance. Awards are made to projects in which the clients, designers and contractors go beyond the legal and environmental minima to achieve distinctive environmental standards of performance.

To find out more about the scheme and the projects that have received awards, please contact the CEEQUAL scheme management team either at CIRIA in London on +44 (0)20 7549 3300, email ceequal@ciria.org, or at Crane Environmental using the contact details below.