The Carbon Footprint Calculator, which from November will be mandatory to use during the planning stage on all major EA construction projects, is now being made available to other construction companies, government bodies and consultants.
 
It will provide a way to find where significant carbon savings can be made during the planning and design process and can be also used to audit the carbon footprint of a completed project.
 
Features of the new tools take into account:
· estimating the CO2 in the raw materials used
· direct emissions from personal travel by employees and transportation of raw materials
· emissions from site activities such as earthworks and excavation allows comparison of waste management options

EA technical advisor Andrew Powell said: “At the Environment Agency we are always looking to ways of reducing the environmental impact from our own construction projects. We spend around £200m a year on construction projects, which accounts for about 3% of the construction civil engineering sector.
 
“With this in mind over the past year, together with Jacobs Consultants, we developed a new tool for calculating the carbon footprint from construction projects. We have been trialling the tool as part of environmental audits on the building of new flood defences schemes.”