CEEQUAL

The Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Awards Scheme (CEEQUAL) is the assessment and awards scheme for improving sustainability in civil engineering and public realm projects. Its objective is to encourage the attainment of environmental excellence in civil engineering and thus to deliver improved environmental and social performance in project specification, design and construction.

CEEQUAL uses a rigorous points-scoring-based assessment covering issues such as the use of water, energy and land, impacts on ecology, landscape, neighbours and archaeology, as well as waste minimisation and management and community relations and amenity. Awards are made to projects in which the clients, designers and contractors go beyond the legal and environmental minima to achieve distinctive standards of performance.

Role of concrete

Concrete is one of the most versatile construction materials known to man, making it the most widely used construction material for civil engineering structures and applications worldwide. Compared to other building materials, it is by far the most durable, with a design life of at least 60 years. In environmental terms, it is useful to think of concrete as having three phases of life – starting with its creation, then its use in buildings and structures, and ending with reuse of the structure due to the design flexibility afforded by concrete solutions or recycling concrete once the building has reached the end of its viable use.