Identification and prioritisation of sustainability issues for the UK precast concrete industry

As part of its strategy for more sustainable construction, the UK Government has been encouraging sector representative bodies and trade associations to develop sector sustainability strategies. A four-year research programme aimed at developing such a strategy for the precast concrete industry was therefore established by the British Precast Concrete Federation in 2004, in collaboration with the Department of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University. In accordance with best practice, the research began with the identification and prioritisation of sustainability issues for the precast industry. A facilitated workshop with key practitioners from the industry identified a series of key business issues for the industry and demonstrated that sustainability was intrinsically linked to the profitability and competitiveness of the industry. A questionnaire survey was then conducted to verify and prioritise these issues across the wider industry. Whilst the survey verified the issues, priorities were found to vary between groups of companies as a result of them being in different phases of a corporate sustainability model. The research has enabled priorities for the precast sector sustainability strategy to be identified which will facilitate progress towards a more sustainable precast concrete industry in the UK.