What will the coming recession mean for the contractor job market?

[jamesbrown]

cryptocretin miner.

[Lost It]

Hope we never go back to the days of cleaning fag ash out of IBM clacker keyboards...

[Lost It]

How would the government mandating all new builds must be measurably Carbon zero to get planning affect the industry?

I suspect that is an easy way to improve our housing stock.

Follow up in a few years that major extensions need to be retrofit greener.

Well if you consider that one of the most used products on the planet, concrete, has a huge impact on pollution, that's a bit of a false hope. Construction by definition will never be "green" because of the materials used, the fuels used, the pollution created by supplying those materials, the gas used making bricks and blocks, even the burners heating up the tarmac to get to the site, anyone that even tries to convince you that building anything isn't damaging the planet is trying to sell you fog.

Sustainable materials indeed. No such thing. Even plasterboard damages the planet. Then there's how do these materials get to the site? By ship and road transport. By train if it's aggregate? Pulled out of the ocean by derv powered dredges in many cases, or quarried at huge expense using DERV powered machinery.
Ships use the most pulluting, crap, junk filled fuel on the planet, just the output of an average 20,000 tonner cargo ship produces more pollution than a week of nose to tail traffic in London.

No one seems to take any notice of the TCO of anything that has to be shipped into the country. In fact there's plenty of evidence that the old triple expansion steam ships fueled by coal polluted less than oil fired Motor Vessels.

Pulled off the 'net:

The shipping industry is responsible for a significant proportion of the global climate change problem. More than three percent of global carbon dioxide emissions can be attributed to ocean-going ships. This is an amount comparable to major carbon-emitting countries — and the industry continues to grow rapidly.

In fact, if global shipping were a country, it would be the sixth largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Only the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan emit more carbon dioxide than the world’s shipping fleet. Nevertheless, carbon dioxide emissions from ocean-going vessels are currently unregulated.

[vetran]

Well if you consider that one of the most used products on the planet, concrete, has a huge impact on pollution, that's a bit of a false hope. Construction by definition will never be "green" because of the materials used, the fuels used, the pollution created by supplying those materials, the gas used making bricks and blocks, even the burners heating up the tarmac to get to the site, anyone that even tries to convince you that building anything isn't damaging the planet is trying to sell you fog.

Sustainable materials indeed. No such thing. Even plasterboard damages the planet. Then there's how do these materials get to the site? By ship and road transport. By train if it's aggregate? Pulled out of the ocean by derv powered dredges in many cases, or quarried at huge expense using DERV powered machinery.
Ships use the most pulluting, crap, junk filled fuel on the planet, just the output of an average 20,000 tonner cargo ship produces more pollution than a week of nose to tail traffic in London.

No one seems to take any notice of the TCO of anything that has to be shipped into the country. In fact there's plenty of evidence that the old triple expansion steam ships fueled by coal polluted less than oil fired Motor Vessels.

Pulled off the 'net:

The shipping industry is responsible for a significant proportion of the global climate change problem. More than three percent of global carbon dioxide emissions can be attributed to ocean-going ships. This is an amount comparable to major carbon-emitting countries — and the industry continues to grow rapidly.

In fact, if global shipping were a country, it would be the sixth largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Only the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan emit more carbon dioxide than the world’s shipping fleet. Nevertheless, carbon dioxide emissions from ocean-going vessels are currently unregulated.

You need to make an omelette you have to break some eggs. I prefer building a house with zero future energy requirements. There are moves to make more environmentally friendly concrete and plaster alternatives, no reason why UK can't lead on that technology. I would support shorter supply lines maybe we can do that with the new technology?

Passivehaus for instance is more about engineering it correctly

https://passiv.de/en/02_informations...quirements.htm

[DoctorStrangelove]

Carbon neutrial chem lab "built of natural materials" (wood):

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...nificant-blaze

Ooops.

[vetran]

Offset it

https://www.cemex.co.uk/vertua-low-carbon-concrete

Geopolymer

https://www.geopolymertech.com/green-concrete/

both are competitive and its not like we haven't got loads of flyash