Construction reform must be supported with training and capacity building

by John Seed, head of the Sustainable Infrastructure Policy Unit at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

But it would be irresponsible to force high tech solutions on developing countries that don’t have the digital infrastructure and knowledge to take advantage of them.Multilateral development banks and other responsible lenders, such as my organisation the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, are rightly keen on supporting green investment and on backing projects that can help construction and infrastructure to be more sustainable and more efficient.

But we also have a duty to ensure that solutions are not imposed, that the ways of working we encourage are in line with the existing knowledge and capabilities on the ground in the countries we invest in or those we can help develop through appropriate training and capacity building.

The truth is that while sophisticated data and technology led construction manufacturing processes are viable in places such as France or the UK, the expertise to make them work just doesn’t exist yet in many countries around the world. There are many nations where if you provided a BIM (building information modelling) model they not only wouldn’t be able to utilise it to create efficiencies and improved service provision, they may not even have the equipment to read the file.

Even if we get round that problem and manage to build something using these techniques, it is irresponsible to walk away from it on completion and leave the management of the asset to organisations which do not have the technology or skills to operate the technology or digital elements of it.

So if we are going to invest in industrialised construction techniques as a means to improve construction efficiency and to help make infrastructure greener around the world a fuller programme is needed: of support, training and knowledge transfer to help construction sectors around the world to change the way they work.

This must take in a wide range of skills. If we invest in a project to create a ‘smart city’, then that city needs to have the skills to operate and protect the digital infrastructure – that means skills in cybersecurity and data management, on top of the more direct construction skills.

The reality of construction around the world is that the major multinational firms with the skills and experience in industrialised construction are usually not bidding on assets far from their own home base. And even if they were we should be careful about shipping in foreign expertise that leaves at the end of the project. Developing knowledge and capacity in the places where the assets are should be our goal.

Funders promote change by making demands of projects, insisting they meet criteria before they are eligible for loans or investment. But those demands have to be sensitive to the situation on the ground, and that should take into account the local supply chains as well as main contractors. If our criteria alienate or exclude firms in the countries we invest in then that is a real problem for us.

We must make sure that we don’t leave places where we fund work in a more fragile state than before, which means ensuring that cyber security and cyber resilience are in place.

We need to build the capacity to work in this way, and the first step towards that is to conduct smart maturity assessments for our cities. We are doing that just now, assessing smart maturity across our Green Cities programme that has just signed up our 51st  city. This greatly helps us identify the appropriate level of digitalisation we can promote in our green infrastructure investments in each city.

For example, we are currently developing a project to build a citywide digital twin in a city of two million people that will help identify building energy efficiency priority investments, model impacts on city air flow from future developments and pinpoint pollution hotspots. But we can’t sign off on investments such as this until we are sure that the city administration has an appropriate level of digital maturity so that we don’t leave the city with an innovation they can’t fully utilise.

Sometimes an advertised innovation will achieve a momentary flash of attention – such as 3D printing of concrete structure, say – and stakeholders will come to us, keen to put this in place in their countries or organisations. But we have to develop the understanding that there are so many steps to take first, so many building blocks to make sure adopting new ways of working are sustainable long term.

But potential efficiencies from industrialised construction  open to us from digitalisation across our regions are huge. Waste is a massive issue in the construction industry and even the simplest step, such as knowing how much of a material has been used in a building and how much thrown away, would be a giant leap forwards in pursuit of the waste reduction goal..

Using BIM and digital systems makes this data instantly available on a component by component basis, on a project by project basis and therefore on an industry wide basis. We could instantly calculate ‘embodied carbon’ or ‘embodied energy’ for each construction project  if project designs were developed into digital twins and then construct a picture of where the problems are.

There is a wide range of maturity out there. We measure digital maturity on a nine-point scale and while some cities are at a two or a three level, there are some that are up at seven and eight. If you want to see what relatively small countries can do then Estonia and Finland are good examples and have achieved a lot.

Construction can improve its efficiency, sustainability and climate impact if it adopts industrialised construction methods, but funders and project backers have to help build that capacity, and ensure that these approaches are designed in from the very start.

That will have an impact on the kinds of buildings we see, as productivity will increase with greater standardisation of components, which will also help with the re-use of components once assets reach the end of their life.

There is no quick fix in countries where construction techniques are less advanced, but if we want these methods to take hold then we have to build the capacity to use them first.

John Seed is head of the Sustainable Infrastructure Policy Unit at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development