How major infrastructure projects can help save the planet and fight climate change 

This week I ventured to the ExCeL London to deliver a BIM Workshop at Digital Construction Week (DCW) with Carl Ainsworth, Design and BIM Manager at VolkerFitzpatrick.

Together we presented a case study on how major infrastructure projects can help save the planet and fight climate change. Perhaps a big, bold statement for a case study title, but this is something very important to us at BIM Academy, and the synergy between digital construction and sustainability present a fierce opponent for climate change.

In 2020, BIM Academy formed a partnership with VolkerFitzpatrick on a £10million major traffic improvement scheme in the North East of England. VolkerFitzpatrick began works in January 2021, and the project is due for completion in May 2022.

Earlier this year, VolkerFitzpatrick produced its Carbon Reduction Strategy to ensure that it is a Net Zero company by 2035. VolkerFitzpatrick is also a signatory to the Science-Based Targets initiative and compliant with the requirements of PPN 06/21. Although writing a strategy and signing up to achieve a reduction in emissions was a great start, VolkerFitzpatrick knew the challenge would be tough. Therefore, VolkerFitzpatrick set out to understand the data we had gathered at BIM Academy around emissions sources and decided to tackle the big hitters first. This is what we talked about in the BIM Workshop: what action was taken and what was the outcome?

Emissions from site activities were identified as the most significant source – in particular, the red diesel used in construction plant and equipment needed to be tackled. Together, we set about reviewing and researching hybrid and low carbon emission construction plant and equipment, and implemented several new products into our projects, such as the use of Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO), where possible. As a result we made some excellent initial carbon savings.

Although we achieved 11.75% reduction in CO₂e, this was only the start and something to build on. We knew we needed to do more to push the boundaries and increase our carbon savings.

One way of achieving this was through the use of BIM and telematics integration. VolkerFitzpatrick searched the market for new, innovative technologies pushing the boundaries of what is possible, which led to its interest in trialling Aquila by BIM Academy – on-site, decision enhancing smart technology.

The appointment of Aquila to the project was to analyse plant equipment performance to gain efficiencies in fuel consumption and reduce carbon emissions.

In the DCW Workshop, Carl and I looked at the strategy behind the significant infrastructure works programme, demonstrated how the plant equipment had been tracked, and gave details on the level of savings achieved.

With Aquila we have been identifying ways of reducing waste and saving on costs for VolkerFitzpatrick throughout the whole project. Aquila links plant equipment to the project work programme using 4D BIM technology, showing real-time activity to accelerate the understanding of onsite operations. For this significant infrastructure project, each vehicle on site had its own tracking device linked directly to a dashboard to know where each piece of equipment was at all times.

Using near real-time data, the 4D mapping of plant equipment allowed us to review, analyse and report on activity, performance, emissions and location. Aquila’s built-in machine learning algorithms quickly become intuitive to the project, extracting knowledge from the data to optimise the project model for top performance whilst enabling seamless deployment of the plant equipment for the next project.

This is just the start for Aquila and the cost savings it can bring to projects and major contractors. If you are interested in working with BIM Academy to reduce your carbon footprint on site, get in touch with me directly and I can give you more detail on the savings achieved with VolkerFitzpatrick, and what could be achieved on yours and other projects moving forward.

To discuss Aquila or anything else related to this article, please contact [email protected].