Rethinking sustainability in construction: A project manager’s role in regeneration

We are building liabilities when we planned to be building assets.

The built environment accounts for 40% of global CO2 emissions. However, in the UK we do a little better, especially with commercial building, with the built environment contributing 25% of our total greenhouse gas footprint annually.

While we have improved the carbon efficiency during use of buildings (operations), the embodied carbon in the materials we use remains a massive, unaddressed liability. Every time a project manager prioritises "tick-box" compliance over material longevity, they effectively sign a cheque for future rework.

Project management unfortunately treats sustainability as a series of boxes to satisfy benchmarks like BREEAM or LEED. As climate extremes escalate, this narrow view reduces the real value of the construction for the client. It creates hidden costs and risks from future requirements (or even standards, regulations and guidelines that are enacted during project delivery).

Project managers (PM) can be at the forefront of this, proactively changing projects that are doomed to fail or likely to fall foul of tighter upcoming regulations, to create greater value for the client and users.

The compliance trap and the path to regeneration

Sustainability isn’t a moral lecture; it’s a consequence of early decisions in a project. These decisions – concerning material selection, supply chain ethics and asset longevity – determine whether a project leaves a positive legacy or an embodied carbon liability. And the project manager has enormous influence here, although few PMs use that influence.

We can use Benefits Dependency Network (BDN) logic to link regulatory adherence to strategic objectives. Instead of viewing regulations like the Modern Slavery Act or the Social Value Act as costs to be minimised, with the BDN we treat them as governance tools to define and defend project value. Building to meet or exceed the next round of regulatory requirements avoids the rework costs associated with ventilation or insulation upgrades that are pretty much inevitable.

A quick reminder: a BDN is a clear diagram that shows how the actions we’re planning to take will deliver changes to the organisation, community and/or environment, which in turn generate benefits that can be measured, reported and assessed, to achieve the objectives. If the BDN isn’t clear, then the actions of the project probably won’t help with the objectives and the project needs to be rethought.

Looking backward to find structural wisdom

In complex environments with long-term processes such as nuclear waste management, project requirements dictate specialised buildings with operational lifespans of only 15 - 20 years. To break the cycle of construction followed by demolition, we use digital twins as 4D planning tools with a time dimension. With the digital twin, we can identify infrastructure such as access roads and utility ducts that can be shared across multiple building generations, reducing the volume of waste and the time taken to demolish and build new.

One company in this area (Sellafield) has used slag concrete (Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag – GGBS) for years because of its cooling properties on large pours. This material embeds considerably less carbon during construction, as it happens.

There is no question about its strength. The ancient Romans used volcanic ash (essentially the same material) to build sea walls that have protected coastal cities for thousands of years. It is a staggering irony that in 2026, we find superior structural wisdom from the Roman empire than in our modern, carbon-heavy shortcuts. If they could build sea walls to last millennia, we have no excuse for structures that crumble before their first major refurbishment.

Stewardship over delivery

We want to challenge project managers to bring our passion to work. If you care about the community or the environment outside of work, then use your influence to care about them at work.

But this goes beyond individual projects; we need to share tried-and-tested practice and experience. Reuse and recycling apply to knowledge as much as assets, and between projects as much as on a single project. This requires shifting the focus from individual building delivery to long-term site stewardship.

Sustainability and regeneration can be most influenced by decisions made in the "pre-carbon" stages of a project lifecycle. This is where our mandate comes to fruition. We act as stewards of the future. The infrastructure of 2026 will be defined not by the permanence of its bricks, but by the wisdom of its project management.

Some strong assertions are made in this blog. For the background evidence to support all of these assertions and more, see the full article "Sustainability and Regeneration in Construction Projects: From Green Building to Timber Innovation" in the May 2026 issue of the PM World Journal.