Where the impact actually is
The environmental impact of an engineering consultancy is overwhelmingly in the buildings it designs, not in its own operations. A practice that reports diligently on its office recycling and designs oversized plant has its priorities backwards.
SDE's environmental policy therefore leads with design.
In design
- Loads are calculated, not padded. Oversized plant is the most common and most expensive carbon failure in building services. Every safety factor applied is a deliberate decision with a stated reason, not an accumulated habit.
- Options are appraised while they are still open. The decisions with the greatest influence over lifecycle carbon are taken before Stage 3. Where the appointment allows it, alternatives are modelled and compared on running cost and carbon as well as capital cost, and the comparison is issued rather than summarised.
- Compliance modelling is used as a design tool. Part L and Section 6 models are run during design when they can still change the answer, not at submission when they can only report it.
- The performance gap is stated. Compliance modelling is not an energy prediction. Where a client needs a prediction of operational energy use, that is a separate exercise carried out to CIBSE TM54 and described as such.
- Embodied carbon in services is assessed where the appointment includes it, using CIBSE TM65.
In our own operations
The largest controllable component of a design consultancy's own footprint is travel. Design work is delivered remotely, and site attendance is planned around the stages that genuinely require an engineer to be present — survey, coordination, witnessing and handover — rather than around a standing meeting cycle. Where a visit can be made by rail it usually is.
Information is issued digitally. Drawings, calculations and specifications are produced, reviewed and issued electronically, and printing is the exception rather than the default.
These are worth stating and not worth overstating. They are a small number against the carbon in the buildings above, which is why this policy leads with design.