BE Sustainable E11: Cementing climate catastrophe - with Martha Dillon

What is our action plan for phasing out concrete? Mike interviews Martha Dillon, writer and policy researcher, about her research into the use of concrete in construction. Why do we continue to use a material we know is harmful and exploitative?

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The topics discussed in this episode include:

• The environmental, health, ecological and political impact of concrete
• Why are we so reliant on concrete?
• Why can't we just ban concrete?
• Are there more viable sustainable alternatives to concrete?

Guest Martha Dillon

Martha Dillon is a writer and policy researcher specialising in housing, land and the climate crisis. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Master’s in Civil and Environmental Engineering, before starting her own critically-acclaimed print magazine, It’s Freezing in LA!, and working in policy and research roles at the Greater London Authority, think tanks and Buro Happold Engineering. She writes regularly for the Architectural Review and Architect’s Journal, and currently works at C40 Cities, a global network of 96 major cities.

Transcript

[00:05] Mike Speight: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of UCEM's Be Sustainable podcast.

[00:10] Our special guest today is Martha Dillon.

[00:13] Martha is a writer and policy researcher specialising in housing, land and the climate crisis.

[00:18] She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Master's in Civil and Environmental Engineering before starting her own critically acclaimed print magazine, It's Freezing in la,

[00:28] and working in policy and research roles at the Greater London Authority think tanks and Buro Happold Engineering. She writes regularly for the Architectural Review and Architects Journal and currently works at C40 Cities, a global network of 96 major cities.

[00:44] Martha, welcome. Thank you very much for joining us today. Great to have you here. Thank you.

[00:48] So I'll go back to the start of our conversation,

[00:52] if I may.

[00:54] I mentioned already in the introduction there that you write regularly for the Architectural Review and that's where I first came across your name. I found an article entitled Concrete Decarbonizing the Planet's Most Consumed Human Made Material and read the article and found it intriguing in a way that I wasn't expecting concrete to hook me into a conversation.

[01:19] So that led to this episode today,

[01:22] to us talking this through. So do you want to start off by just giving us the background to the article and then a sort of an overview of the key points you were making in there?

[01:33] Martha Dillon: So I guess the article came from the Architectural Review doing an issue dedicated to concrete. Concrete is,

[01:40] you know, the most used man-made material on the planet. So it made sense that occasionally they have to think about concrete.

[01:49] And they approached me to write the kind of heading, key keynote piece about green concrete and what the status of the development of green concrete is and kind of where we might go from here in terms of concrete.

[02:01] So the article looks really at what, you know, what are the impacts of concrete. And actually it's fairly well understood in kind of climate and built environment circles. But I think there are nuances that are skated over.

[02:15] And then the article goes on to think about, you know, where do we go from here, what kind of approach might be,

[02:21] you know, radical but also constructive in terms of going forward with our building materials.

[02:28] So maybe if I just start with a bit on the impacts of concrete and sort of take it from there.

[02:34] So I think, and I've thought this, the more I've got further from that article, I think the place to start is really about health.

[02:44] You know, you mentioned I trained as a civil engineer and anyone who's done any kind of construction site safety training will have had to learn about the impacts of concrete.

[02:51] And they are horrific. It's really bad for your lungs, it's toxic to your skin. It's a huge fire risk on sites.

[03:00] It's a really, really horrible material. And actually everyone in the construction sector kind of knows that and has to work with that every single day.

[03:08] It also requires, you know, big, heavy, dangerous machinery,

[03:12] really noisy machinery.

[03:15] And not just on construction sites, but, you know, through the freight network in the mines to extract the different constituent parts of concrete. It's a really, really dangerous and unhealthy material.

[03:26] And I think the air quality point is crucial. I think it's something that we're only just coming to terms with at the moment, air quality. We sort of think we live in a kind of cleaner and healthier world than the sort of Victorian industrial era.

[03:39] But, you know, as some politicians and some places are starting to make a fuss about, you know, we're living with this silent killer that is truly horrendous for our brains and our bodies.

[03:49] And I think, yeah, the more I think about this article, the more I think that the kind of health angle is something that we really underestimate and don't kind of haven't come to terms with in terms of concrete and cement usage.

[04:01] And the other health angle is living with concrete, you know, every, every day, living on these really hard surfaces that overheat terribly in hot weather, which is only, you know, as we know, getting hotter.

[04:12] It's also really bad for things like flood risk because it doesn't, you know, absorb water. It just helps water build up and, you know, you get floods and all the health risks associated with that.

[04:21] So I think, I think the kind of big thing about concrete that is not recognized in environmental circles causes the health angle of concrete.

[04:31] The other area that I talked about a lot in the piece, sort of even before getting to the environmental angle, is the kind of industrial side of concrete.

[04:40] It's this,

[04:42] you know, material that's used everywhere and it's a material that is sold and extracted by a few massive companies and they make their money out of exploiting local areas. And, you know, that sounds very activisty, radical,

[04:56] but,

[04:56] you know, it's. It's true. They have these big mines that completely destroy local areas, local forests, local landscapes, local agricultural land,

[05:05] both in terms of ripping up the land you're digging, but also that has wider consequences both in terms of the pollution,

[05:12] air pollution, but also groundwater pollution,

[05:15] disruption to local biodiversity.

[05:17] They tend to pay extremely low wages,

[05:20] really low job security and very, very unsafe working conditions in a lot of these places.

[05:27] And typically the companies aren't digging and extracting in the countries they're headquartered in. So there's a very strong kind of colonial and sort of uncomfortable power dynamic there where you have lots of often Western companies sort of digging up other areas and sort of really interfering with local customs,

[05:45] practices, livelihoods and safety as well.

[05:49] So I think, yeah, the more I get away from the article, the more I think actually, you know, those things alone are enough for us to really seriously be reconsidering how we're using this truly foul material.

[06:00] But the environmental part is also,

[06:03] you know, really unavoidable.

[06:04] I've sort of mentioned the impact on local ecologies and local communities,

[06:10] but as I'm sure everyone listening to this podcast knows, it also has an immense carbon footprint.

[06:17] And I think it's about 8% is normally the amount that's cited of global emissions, which is vast.

[06:23] For one single material to be nearly 10% of global emissions is pretty huge. And it's also not just the emissions of the material, but it's the emissions of the processes and systems that then use what concrete has developed, whether that be power stations or roads or new infrastructure for more fossil fuel extraction.

[06:46] And yeah, I don't know if it's useful to talk a bit about where emissions from concrete come from, but I think the really salient factor is that it's very, very difficult to get rid of.

[06:56] A big part of the emissions is from furnaces to heat up the constituent parts of cement. But that is relatively doable to change how a furnace is powered to a renewable source.

[07:07] But what is not easy to do is the fact that the majority of emissions from particularly cement come from a chemical process,

[07:15] comes from the decomposition of limestone.

[07:17] And you can't just plug that into a wind turbine. That's a chemical part of concrete production that we really have to face up to being extremely, extremely difficult to decarbonize.

[07:29] Mike Speight: Yeah. And I think reading the article, that's one of the things that really struck me about it is, I mean,

[07:36] working through it, it became clear that,

[07:38] and maybe I've been naive before reading it, but I was, I'm aware of the impact of concrete as a construction material and so on. Actually the, the entire life cycle, the extraction, the manufacture, the production, the use,

[07:52] the life long impact of concrete, it's, it's there from start to finish. There is no point on this journey where,

[07:59] apart from holding up the roof, concrete is a good thing.

[08:03] Which,

[08:04] yeah,

[08:05] as I said, was part of what hooked me into the article and to the subject and why I thought it was important that we had a chance to sort of air some of this,

[08:16] some of this detail.

[08:17] Possibly a slightly facile question, but why can't we just ban it? Why can't we ban concrete?

[08:22] Martha Dillon: Well, arguably in some locations and some applications it should just be banned. You know, we are at a point where, you know, the health, the kind of political,

[08:31] the environmental impacts are such that we really do seriously need to talk about whether there are applications for which this material is just, yeah, foul.

[08:41] But I think there's also a need to be nuanced about some places where we maybe do have to use it in small amounts. And so a kind of blanket ban wouldn't necessarily be helpful.

[08:50] So I think an example of that is clean energy infrastructure.

[08:53] You know, realistically, if we are in a place where we say we're going to power everything with renewables,

[08:58] you know, you can't really build a wind turbine out of stone.

[09:02] You know, things like, you know, big, big heavy infrastructure does tend to need concrete. And you know, I think certainly there needs to be a conversation about the trade offs there and how we use different materials for those things and we'll talk about it more.

[09:14] But, but yeah, there does, there are clearly applications where concrete is quite hard to get away from and probably there is a kind of health and economic benefits to those applications.

[09:24] I think the other place that is really important to talk about with nuance is in development and in countries where there isn't necessarily a huge amount of infrastructure or safe housing.

[09:35] And again,

[09:36] we need to be serious about just quite how much we radically need to reduce using concrete, but also we need to be serious about who makes that decision,

[09:44] what we do instead, how we meet particularly housing needs in some countries and you know, a really, really serious ethically driven conversation about that is important. So I think, you know, a blanket ban, you know, is, is too,

[09:59] too simplistic, but a serious conversation about how we drastically, drastically reduce how we use this and who should get to use it is in order.

[10:08] Mike Speight: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the, one of the stats with it within the original article that, that really struck me was the, the need for 600 to 756 million dwellings to be built by 2030 to hit UN ambitions and targets.

[10:26] And I mean within the UK we have a target of a million and a half homes by the end of the current parliament.

[10:34] Globally, 600 million plus.

[10:38] That's an enormous volume of building that's required and as you say, in areas where there aren't necessarily the other options around different materials and so on. So there's a lot that needs doing.

[10:53] And again,

[10:55] this is where some of the developed and developing contrast is really, really clear.

[11:01] Martha Dillon: Yeah, And I would say, I mean, I definitely would take the UK housing targets with a pinch of salt. There's lots of different ways to rebalance house prices and to think about this.

[11:11] But you know, there's also, there's also a real question about, you know, even in countries that have a much bigger housing need, you know, is concrete. Right. And I think that's the, that's the point about we need to have that discussion and it needs, decisions need to be made by people who live in those countries.

[11:24] Concrete is not always going to be the right example in any location. I think the earthquake we've recently seen really shows that the extent of the devastation and these really, really big skyscrapers coming down is a sobering fact about the use of that material.

[11:40] So yeah, I think it's about having that conversation and being serious about the trade offs that are going on.

[11:47] Mike Speight: Yeah, very much so. I was very struck by those images from the recent earthquake as well.

[11:54] I mean, in terms of the stakeholders in that conversation, is there any movement towards actually getting a consensus approach to this globally at the moment on concrete?

[12:07] Martha Dillon: No. I mean there are lots of industry groups, but being industry groups, their vested interest is to continue a really high level use of concrete.

[12:16] There are obviously nonprofit and civil society groups who maybe can take a more, a more kind of evidence led approach,

[12:23] but in terms of a sort of,

[12:26] you know, really well rounded perspective on it, perspective on it and decision making process.

[12:32] Not that I'm aware of and yeah, maybe out of scope of this discussion, but yeah, ideally that's what the UN and IPCC are doing with a lot of their climate work.

[12:40] But it does tend to be quite energy focused in terms of end use of energy rather than material and sector driven. Although obviously that is in there as well. So I think there are structures for it.

[12:50] But yeah, it's definitely emerging and of course there are lots of really brilliant built environment networks, so they are in place, but there isn't sort of one global kind of resource or roadmap that I would point to with confidence as having the answer on this topic.

[13:04] Mike Speight: Yeah.

[13:05] And yet in terms of impact on UN sustainability development goals,

[13:11] fairly straightforward to see the impact carbon has across the board. Because you've talked about carbon emissions,

[13:19] you've talked about ecosystem destruction and so on the impacts on the health of the workforce, impacts on the health of residents and users of buildings.

[13:28] This touches a lot of different areas as well as Global inequalities and all the rest of it.

[13:33] So you would hope that there is an opportunity for a forum at that kind of level to move this conversation forward.

[13:42] Martha Dillon: Yeah, and of course, there are, you know, in pieces, but there's not, you know, there's not sort of a roadmap that has been made that pulls them all together that I'm aware of.

[13:50] If any listeners know of one, please send it over.

[13:53] Mike Speight: Definitely, yeah, we'll have any input anybody can give us on that one. Absolutely.

[14:01] So,

[14:02] looking forward, then,

[14:03] to possible solutions, we've established. We can't just unilateral here and now say, no, we're banning concrete. That's not realistic.

[14:16] We. One of our possible draft titles for this episode was what is our action plan for phasing out concrete by 2050?

[14:25] Is that realistic? Is that necessary or achievable?

[14:31] Martha Dillon: I don't know about timeframes, and I think the key with this kind of timeframe approach is that it can't be the same everywhere.

[14:41] Every single block of concrete that we pour or concrete building that we design or spec or procure is more emissions in the atmosphere. And we are in a climate crisis.

[14:53] So I worry about saying, we buy 2050, because actually, then you start getting in, oh, well, if I use this slightly better mix next year, then I'm kind of on a pathway.

[15:01] But actually, you know, you're losing the years in which you really deeply invest in different ways of doing it. So I think it's more about saying, okay, we need to get serious about this.

[15:11] We need to plan that by 2050, we're not using concrete anymore except in exceptional circumstances.

[15:18] And that's going to look different in every single country, for every different.

[15:21] Every single different company,

[15:22] local authority,

[15:24] government.

[15:25] So I think it's more, you know, it's emergency thinking. It's not, you know, in 20 years time, hopefully we'll be there.

[15:32] It's how do we get there?

[15:35] Mike Speight: Okay, so moving in, then, to possible solutions.

[15:39] You mentioned at the start of our conversation that the Architectural Review was looking at potential options around green concrete and so on and other alternatives to concrete.

[15:54] Where are we on that,

[15:56] that kind of path?

[15:58] Martha Dillon: Yeah, I think. I think it's really worth understanding green concrete, even if,

[16:02] you know, your conclusion on it is that it's not right. Which, to be honest, is my conclusion, but it is worth understanding what the progress is, how we're getting there.

[16:11] You know, if there was a perfect green concrete, that would be great.

[16:15] The. The ways that people approach it. 1. One is the kind of Doing it by degrees approach, where you make the design slightly more efficient, you electrify your furnace in which you're making your cement,

[16:29] you maybe inject a bit of CO2 into the concrete to try and offset some of the concrete impact.

[16:35] I think we need to get real that that is just not enough and that's just not acceptable as the only way we can do it. And it's really, really not acceptable for that to be called green concrete, given the impact that concrete is having.

[16:48] Where there is a bit more progress is cement substitution, where people are using different materials to substitute cement. So one that most people might have heard of is GGBs,

[17:00] but you can also include a bit of lime and that reduces the amount of CO2 produced in the process. It doesn't produce such a strong concrete, but it can be used for kind of non structural applications.

[17:12] So there are, there are different things people are mixing into cement mixes to make them less intense.

[17:18] Again, we need to be realistic. That doesn't do everything.

[17:21] A lot of these things that are mixed in are in themselves.

[17:25] You know, byproducts are very carbon intense processes. They have their own embodied carbon footprint.

[17:31] They don't, they don't solve the problem.

[17:35] So the kind of, I think the long term area that would be more promising is where researchers are looking for different ways to produce cement completely.

[17:46] So in the UK there's been some work done on basically recycling cement.

[17:51] So you know, re extracting cement from old bits of concrete to be reused. So at least you're not kind of re releasing or releasing new carbon emissions in that process.

[18:03] There's another kind of area of research around biogenic limestone. So they basically grow limestone using algae from CO2 in the atmosphere. So it still has an emissions impact, but it's sort of just off it's CO2 that's already been taken from the atmosphere, if that makes sense.

[18:20] So the kind of the idea is that the net emission is zero and then there's a lot of work done on extracting the CO2 from the industrial process and basically storing that in blocks.

[18:32] So you're releasing the CO2 but you're capturing it at source and then you're turning that in itself into a construction product.

[18:38] You know, if those things worked, great from a solely emissions perspective,

[18:43] great.

[18:44] The thing is they're really, really early stage. They're all still just coming out of university departments. They're not at commercial scale, let alone being root and branch incorporated into the construction industry and concrete cycles.

[18:59] So I think given that picture,

[19:03] sure, great. That there Is work going on into decarbonizing concrete. In this world where we accept a small amount of concrete has to be used, that will be really important.

[19:13] But there is no way that the sector is on track for 2050 or any date you could choose fully, fully decarbonizing its processes. And really, crucially, none of these things get rid of the health and ecological impacts of concrete.

[19:28] None of these things resolve the supply chain problems or the fact that concrete is cheap, because labor in concrete supply chains tends to be very, very, very undervalued.

[19:37] So green concrete, you know, as an intellectual pursuit, of course it's, it's there and it's, you know, mainly being funded by the public sector.

[19:45] But it is happening,

[19:48] but it's not.

[19:49] Yeah, we're not there yet. We're not there on any kind of pace that we need to be getting there. If that was to be the solution.

[19:56] Mike Speight: Can we quantify the benefit of introducing all of these? And I appreciate, you know, from what you're saying, you know, these are not yet to industrial scale, but would they make enough difference even if it all worked, or is it a bit of a forlorn pursuit?

[20:11] Martha Dillon: I mean, it's a good question. And you know, there are people whose,

[20:15] you know, bread and butter is doing kind of body carbon assessments of these things.

[20:19] There's so much nuance about that, particularly with the capture and storage approach. You know, who gets to claim that? How does that get claimed?

[20:25] A lot of carbon accounting sectors have, have been,

[20:29] you know, found to, to not do this well. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of, bit of that is floating around.

[20:35] But, you know, of course, of course a lot of these,

[20:38] you know, processes are good. You know, they're good science,

[20:42] but it's just,

[20:43] you know, they're not, they're not the standard product you're buying in the market.

[20:49] Mike Speight: And presumably the, the more technologically advanced and the more complex this becomes, the more expensive it becomes as well, which is in terms of encouraging constructors to, to use these materials, it's less attractive.

[21:07] Martha Dillon: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, what process do you use where recycling cement is great in the UK, where we have lots of feedstock, but in a country where they're, you know, building big bits of new infrastructure but don't have material to spare to be recycling, then that's not really solving any problems.

[21:25] I think the other kind of uncomfortable truth going on is that, as I said, a lot of it is publicly funded, whether through university research or through the public sector investing in or part investing or helping develop facilities for so called green concrete.

[21:41] But then the public sector also expected to then buy it. So they're paying twice, they're paying for this more expensive product when they've already paid for the investment. And meanwhile the concrete sector is, to be frank, going around saying, oh look, we're signatory to this alliance, but we've not really done anything.

[21:55] There's a lot of very uncomfortable sort of development ethics going on. Another example is there has been quite a lot of money from big tech into low carbon concrete.

[22:04] And that's because a lot of tech companies, by using AI, are having to build tons of data centers which use concrete and then look very bad on their carbon accounting balances.

[22:13] And AI obviously in operation, has a huge carbon footprint.

[22:17] Regardless of your opinions on the ethical use of AI, it uses a lot of water, it uses a lot of energy. So. So there's a lot of very, very complicated dynamics going on around the development of these products,

[22:30] which is maybe inevitable. But I think we should all be taking a much, much more critical eye when we see all these claims of green concrete products and how well the concrete industry is doing on decarbonizing the products.

[22:43] Mike Speight: Yeah, and that data center aspect is really interesting. I think that may be the first thing that properly drew me into the original article that Microsoft had announced or revealed that emissions had risen by a third in the four years since 2020 on the back of the construction of data centers.

[23:04] That's huge for a corporation that impacts everybody's daily lives.

[23:09] And you'd imagine it's the same for all of the other,

[23:14] the big tech that we see out there. So that feels like sort of a.

[23:22] Well, it's certainly not an obvious impact of the expansion in the use of AI,

[23:30] but it's having a big impact here, isn't it?

[23:32] Martha Dillon: Yeah, I was really stunned by that because obviously you read a lot about, you know, I think a few years ago I read something about how AI was already using as much electricity as the whole of Ireland or something.

[23:42] Extraordinary. And you read a lot about its water usage. Right. To cool the data centers. And then I was looking at some big tech companies, actual environmental reporting sheets and saw that they were sort of acknowledging this increase in emissions and assumed that at least some of it would come from energy.

[23:59] But it's basically all scope three emissions. It's all embodied carbon emissions from hardware and from data centers. And so in their reports they were sort of saying this is from data centers.

[24:07] And then you do see sometimes announcements that they're tiny, relatively speaking to their Profits fund for researchers going towards green concrete. And there was an interesting piece about,

[24:19] I think Meta had one of the big tech companies had used AI to try and come up with a more,

[24:29] you know, a less carbon intensive concrete mix and sort of made this big fanfare that this AI tool had managed to come up with a mix that saved 40% of emissions or something.

[24:38] And then, you know, you had scientists taking a look at the details and actually they'd started from this very, very carbon intensive mix and the kind of good version they'd got to was actually worse or, you know, as good as most standard mixes in most countries.

[24:52] So there's a lot of. Yeah, I mean it's.

[24:55] Again, I think we really, really need to be taking with a pinch of salt claims made about these products and really get serious about whether they're actually coming anytime soon.

[25:04] Mike Speight: So could a more nuanced approach that incorporates other materials work?

[25:10] Martha Dillon: I think so. I think the. I don't think there's a solution, but I think in terms of a kind of really high level approach, I think we do need to accept a really massive reduction and restriction of when, where and how we use concrete and then increase and,

[25:28] you know, increase carefully and well the amount of other materials that we're using.

[25:33] So that's moving to a construction sector that isn't just reliant on,

[25:37] you know, one behemoth material, but one where we use timber, we use stone, we use bricks, we used biocomposites, we use, you know, new materials and have this kind of palette of options that we create our buildings and a lot of our infrastructure from.

[25:56] I think there are also a lot of benefits to that approach. I think the main one is that,

[26:00] you know, some extraction probably is not necessary to keep us all going. Like we do rely on stuff as humans.

[26:07] The real danger, and I'm kind of quoting from other people on this, not my idea, but is extractivism. So when you are extracting things in quite an uncontrolled way, in a dangerous way, in ecologically destructive way,

[26:22] but controlled, careful, sustainable,

[26:25] well managed extraction is possible. And so if we move to a world in which we are procuring and specifying a range of materials,

[26:32] you then also have a world where you have smaller,

[26:34] better supply chains,

[26:36] you know,

[26:37] more fewer materials.

[26:39] Countries are then enabled to manage their stocks better and sort of make sure people have better welfare conditions,

[26:46] make sure that they're restoring areas once they've taken the materials from them. It's just all much more manageable and controllable because it's not just this one huge super industry run by a few companies that are really, really hard to rein in or you know, really kind of countries are really dependent on them for jobs or taxes or whatever it might be.

[27:05] I think that also really beneficial for the health of the sector as a whole. It's not healthy that the sector is coming from these few huge, very powerful companies. And actually if you have lots of smaller companies, supply chains, industries, there's space for small businesses, there's space for much more creativity and care in how all these different supply chains are running.

[27:25] That's a really exciting opportunity for designers, for contractors,

[27:30] for people who want to create homes, retrofit their homes at best spaces.

[27:36] To use materials in a diverse way and to be creative with how you use materials is a really exciting prospect.

[27:44] In the article I sort of talk about,

[27:46] in the tech world, they've embraced messiness, they've embraced complexity, they've embraced these very organic tech systems.

[27:53] And I think it's time for construction industry to do the same. You know, rather than just using one material again and again, again very badly and dangerously,

[28:00] it's time to embrace the fact that maybe we're going to start doing it in a, in a really diversified way and where people and places are valued really highly as well.

[28:11] Mike Speight: Okay, interesting. These ideas seem promising, but how can we incentivize the industry to take action on this? How can we make it worth their while?

[28:24] Martha Dillon: I think,

[28:25] I think there's two parts to it. I think that one is we do need to be realistic about the fact that bans, restrictions, limitations, regulations are needed. It's just not going to happen,

[28:35] leaving companies to their own devices and it isn't happening as we've talked about today.

[28:40] So we need, we need to get real about that. Policymakers need to get real about that. I think somewhere like the UK in particular, we have a very, very well developed built environment already.

[28:49] We have a, of materials that have already been extracted and in use or kind of being demolished, deconstructed.

[28:56] You know, we don't really need to be relying on concrete anymore to be creating new buildings and places.

[29:03] So I think one side is the, is the stick, but then the other side is the carrot. And that is about,

[29:08] you know, investment in the circular economy, investment in supply chains, businesses, infrastructure to reuse, recycle, treat, deconstruction,

[29:17] you know, do all of that material upcycling and reuse. And that requires investment, it requires time, it requires skills.

[29:26] I think the other part is, you know, if we move from a world in which concrete and to a certain degree, steel are the kind of only materials that are used to one where we use a big range of materials better.

[29:39] It's incentives for using those other materials. It's making sure we have contractors who are trained up to build really well with timber in a fireproof, safe way. You know, using stone, is it investing in AI technologies that help us scan stone so we understand where the irregularities are and we can still use it safely?

[29:58] You know, there's so much opportunity and so much space for a particular country like the UK to be thinking about some of those design questions and some of those sort of, yeah, high skill, high tech questions.

[30:09] And then I think the third place that maybe falls between carrot and stick is thinking about modern slavery and thinking about supply chain regulation and,

[30:17] you know,

[30:18] LCAs - life, like life cycle assessments - are part of that. Thinking about actually when we're getting materials and using them somewhere like the uk, do we know where they're from? Do we know who've been involved in its creation?

[30:29] Has that been safe and fair and properly valued?

[30:33] So I think there's a whole plethora of things we need to do across the industry to be moving away from concrete and encouraging the use of other materials better and more safely.

[30:43] And underlying all that is the role of the designer and the role of people in the industry and what we choose to procure and design and create and encourage as well.

[30:53] Mike Speight: Okay, fantastic.

[30:55] And finally then to try and wrap this up,

[30:57] what other questions should we be asking to make sure that the built environment is as sustainable as it possibly can be?

[31:06] Martha Dillon: I think that's a good question.

[31:07] I think, I mean, I've talked about it a lot, but like, yeah, that supply chain piece and the modern slavery piece. And you know,

[31:14] I did a project a while ago where we interviewed union representatives from international union organizations about construction worker safety.

[31:24] And it was so troubling and scary and troubling and scary that I'd not thought about it enough as someone as part of the environment,

[31:31] just how horrendous the construction sector is across the world and how terrible it is and the fact that it comes from that, because these big companies don't want to pay anyone anything and they don't want to,

[31:41] you know, make these sites safety. And we sort of live in our buildings constructed from materials that are just,

[31:47] you know, it's just really unacceptable in this day and age. So I, I would say that and I, you know, as we've talked about today, it's completely wound up in sustainability.

[31:53] Sustainability is an opportunity to Also think about some of those things and has to go hand in hand with that.

[32:00] I think the, I think the air quality piece as well,

[32:04] I think,

[32:05] I think because it's kind of almost quite old fashioned environmentalism, air quality, people sort of assume it's kind of,

[32:12] everyone knows it and doesn't need to try. But actually, I think, you know, ULEZ in London's a good example of how people just don't, don't get it, like how dangerous these things are.

[32:22] So I think thinking about air quality is really crucial and is part of the sustainability piece.

[32:28] And then I guess the last area I'd plug is one that I've worked on the most is the link between sustainable buildings and housing and the housing crisis.

[32:35] And the most obvious entry point to that is the,

[32:38] you know, how do you build 1.5 million homes with a carbon budget? But actually I think it runs deeper. I think it's about, you know, when you talk about,

[32:46] you know, landlord regulations, it's what do you expect a landlord to do about retrofit? That's a really big question.

[32:52] You know, when you talk about funding for councils, how do you fund councils to retrofit their buildings and put in heat pumps and all this stuff? When you talk about mortgages,

[33:01] you know, can we stop bringing these crazy mortgages? People are encouraged to take out and actually link them to a home's environmental footprint and quality and, you know, the owner's preparedness to retrofit them.

[33:12] So I would say housing is maybe the third place I'm really interested in in terms of what sustainability means for the built environment.

[33:19] Mike Speight: Great. Then all that remains is for me just to thank you, Martha, for joining us today. It's been a fascinating conversation,

[33:28] maybe even the first of many. I think it's something we could definitely come back to.

[33:31] Martha Dillon: No worries. Yeah, lovely to meet you.

[33:33] Mike Speight: But that is the end of our time for today. That's the end of the episode and if anybody out there has enjoyed it,

[33:39] then I would encourage you to subscribe.

[33:41] It's available on all the usual sources,

[33:43] YouTube, Spotify and so on. Thank you.