A new report about sustainability in construction finds that 73% of industry professionals already use sustainability practices—and expect to add more by 2028.
Published by telematics firm Trackunit, the “Constructing a Better Future” survey also finds a differential in how North American and European construction professionals view sustainability.
More than a third (36%) of North Americans say sustainability is now “very important” compared to 25% in Europe and that differential narrows only marginally when the survey includes “important” in that comparison for respective scores of 55% and 46%.
“We were aware that North American construction companies were definitely becoming more serious about sustainability and emissions reporting just because of the discussions we have with our customers on a regular basis,” said Trackunit CEO Soeren Brogaard in a statement. “But this is the first time we’ve really uncovered hard, statistical data that validates this and takes us from an anecdotal sense of what is going on to something that is evidence based and clear.”
The survey points to KPI-led goals as some of the evidence.
“North American companies are leading a revolution in the way we think about sustainability with some significant players in the industry implementing KPI-led goals that specifically put them in line to either match or even beat the UN’s 2030 targets on emissions reporting,” said Brogaard. “We‘ve termed this ‘competitive sustainability,’ and if this really is a phenomenon that is going to tighten its grip on the construction sector, then this could be the single biggest cultural shift we have ever seen in attitudes towards sustainability.”
Globally, contractors and equipment rental companies are more serious about sustainability than their equipment owner and dealer counterparts. Fifty-nine percent of the contractors and equipment rental companies marked sustainability as “important” versus 43% and 51%, respectively.
However, 58% of construction professionals expect sustainability to become “important” over the next five years compared to just 26% who think it will diminish in importance.
There is a similar divide among those who have already implemented sustainability practices in their businesses with Contractors topping out at 73%, followed by dealers and equipment owners at 69% and equipment rentals at 64%. But over the next five years, 50% of construction businesses expect to implement more practices while a further 32% will give it consideration.
“What this clearly shows is that construction professionals are already very serious about sustainability and want to do what is right for their business and society as a whole,” Brogaard said in his analysis. “It’s not really a surprise that contractors lead the way here given that they are very much at the client-facing end of construction which exerts significant pressure, too.
“With regulatory pressures, societal demands for better, cleaner construction practices, and the UN’s 2030 targets on emissions reporting increasingly dominating agendas of government and businesses, this is only going to move in one direction over the next five years,” Brogaard said.
“Construction companies are becoming more and more interested in what technology can do for them across a whole variety of areas, including sustainability and emissions reporting,” Brogaard said. “As the IoT solution-providers get better at raising the benchmark on emissions reporting, I believe this will see take up of software solutions increase significantly both in terms of the number of companies that use them and how much they are prepared to spend as their delivery of hard, irrefutable numbers becomes compelling.”
Trackunit now offers emissions reporting software designed to enhance fleet owners’ ability to meet CO2 targets and win contracts with strict sustainability criteria.
Emissions Reporting harnesses synthesized machine metadata and individual equipment profiling to unlock comprehensive total fleet emissions reporting for off-highway machines and equipment.
“That [software] in time should put an end to the practice of guesstimating, which is a severe limitation on our ability to meet Greenhouse Gas Protocols,” Brogaard said. “If we can change that, then we are really impacting construction’s future in an incredibly progressive way.”
Trackunit has more than 2 million assets connected.
