Platform on civil engineering, underground infrastructure, energy, construction equipment & construction machinery
When we look at sustainability in civil engineering it is striking that this has actually been a topic in everyday practice for a very long time. For example, pavers or actually, as they are called today the makers of infra, they have been sustainable for centuries. Baked street materials are taken out and put back in. We do not know any better and it is quite miraculous that we do not realize it until today. All of a sudden we are sustainable. So with this you can see that the word has acquired a huge meaning that resonates through all facets of our daily work in the GWW.
Reconstruction on behalf of climate/sustainability project "Emmakwartier Alkmaar". (2019)
So this meaning is created and filled in by processes in our environment in practice but also in regulations and politics. Some experience this as a coercive mechanism but actually it is therefore dead wrong. You could say that the new developments are helping us to give sustainability the body we want to see in the sector and our country.
Earthworks for climate project "returning Jansbeek to downtown Arnhem". (2018)
Residents of the Netherlands and thus Europe each experience this sustainability in their own way. If you then descend to the residential neighborhood and ask yourself how sustainable the reconstruction of this neighborhood actually is, it is fun to ask its residents. Ask them how they see and experience it. Once before I had the opportunity to write an article in this magazine about the Emmakwartier in Alkmaar. The residents there were increasingly involved in sustainable elements of the reconstruction and were able to tell us unerringly how they saw this sustainability. For themselves but also for their children and the future of the neighborhood. That's also where the comment came from on how to make new again with old. Sustainability literally in practice. So in a nutshell you can sum up sustainability as a whole of materials and human thinking. Absolutely a natural movement as I sometimes say: if you throw things up into the air they always come down again, in other words, everything you do returns one time. So circular thinking and doing is automatic.
Drainage works "Stadhuislaan Rotterdam". (2019)
In GWW, you see this so beautifully with the machines, for example. A few years ago, people couldn't imagine that such a large excavator could also be electric. We don't scrap those old machines, we convert them. Now they are here and the step to working with them and asking for them (or including them as a requirement in the specifications) is underway. For this you have to have guts, because the first doomsayers already came my way. "Yes, it will work for two hours and then I will definitely have to recharge it with a hefty diesel generator," you will hear. I am sure we will continue to suffer from such thinkers of the inhibiting head start in the years to come, but it's like the electric car, once on the road it takes care of itself.
This is also all sustainable construction and the GWW sector is in full swing in this area. Great challenges are in front of us, but also threats, like for example PFAS pollution but also CO2 emissions. We know more and more and also we share our knowledge much better and let each other benefit from it. In this magazine you can read a lot about the knowledge and experiences and apply them in your daily practice. That is the real profit of sustainability for 'people, planet and profit'. Working sustainably is normal, only it's time we all thought so!
