Using Low Carbon Concrete in your Home

‍

The news that Laing O’Rourke are switching to Low Carbon Concrete on all of their schemes moving forward is very welcome. As we make best efforts to reduce our Carbon Footprint on all of our building projects, it has long been the case that traditional concrete is not a very ‘green’ product, you only have to view a few episodes of Grand Designs to understand that most conscientious self-builders with an eye on the environment make best efforts to utilise green-building techniques, and concrete does not rate highly.

 It is also clear from these projects that concrete is still the go-to material when it comes to many methods of construction due to its flexibility and strength when cured, it is therefore very difficult to eliminate it as a building material fully when building a home or house extension, even a timber-framed off-site Modular Home needs a base to sit upon which is going to last. If Laing O’Rourke are stating that they can reduce their own corporate carbon footprint by 28% in utilising low-carbon concrete and it is claiming to be cost-neutral, then we all have to ensure that we are making best efforts to consider this.

‍

‍

‍

Drilling-down on the detail, a significant part of this is to use pre-cast concrete, which is less flexible but can still be fully utilised throughout building projects as long as considered at the outset, and on a reduced scale can be used to create some Elegant Homes when mixed with other sustainable materials. We are not quite at a place in this country where we can build bespoke pre-cast concrete houses economically, but we can certainly make use of some of the standardised off-side concrete products in our projects in order to minimise our.