Will Contract Rewards Boost Green Building?

摘要

The Government is encouraging construction to innovate in order to achieve green targets such as zero carbon homes by 2016, zero carbon non-domestic buildings by 2019 and the major retro fitting of existing homes and buildings. With the introduction of legislation to help hit these targets, are extra contract provisions required to push this along? There is a need for those designing and constructing a building to be involved at a much earlier stage in a project to ensure everybody buys into the sustainable objectives. The JCT is developing a Pre-Construction Services Agreement to encourage such early involvement and the industry needs to focus more on the design stage and procurement. Employers who want to future proof buildings against changes to legislation may have difficulty in knowing when to freeze the design - the risk being that regulations introduced after construction has started could lead to variations that cause disruption, delay and extra cost.