
By Pete Turner CEnv
"Hi all, I’m Pete Turner and this is the first of my blogs here. I hope it gives you an insight into what I do, albeit in this instance what I have done, that has enabled me to drive environmental agendas the way we as Chartered Environmentalists (or similar) would want. Today I'd like to discuss value engineering. So here goes…"
Pete is an Associate Director of Construction Management at Jacobs.
Value engineering in real life – the “Blue Roof”
As a Senior Design Manager working on some of Europe’s largest and highest-profile public infrastructure construction projects, I have managed the delivery of many elements of critical and complex design. This is a phase of delivery that often shapes and defines all phases that follow it.
In leading these designs, I had the opportunity to shape the development and implementation of solutions and opportunities. These often resulted in improvements to multiple elements of construction delivery and, in many instances, when what was being built would become operational. The solutions, often driven by different agendas (such as commercial, programme duration, and Health & Safety), nearly always also resulted in environmental improvements. To be honest, nearly all of these different agendas positively impacted the others, no matter which one of them led in the first instance.
This, the first of my blogs on this topic, captures one amazing idea – a “Blue Roof” drainage system.
The Blue Roof
A frequent constraint on many designs are requirements from respective water companies. They often mandate that the quantity of water discharged into their infrastructure is such that it does not impact the capacity and capability of what their systems are able to manage. A common solution to this often consists of an underground attenuation tank system. The system often includes multiple tanks and is often large. This form of system stores water (intended for discharge), letting it out at a controlled rate to comply with requirements.
On one project my team and I proposed a Blue Roof system. This type of system, could, due to a relatively large surface area (close to the entirety of the ‘flat’ roof), easily attenuate sufficient quantities of rainwater. It would then allow the water down into the drainage system at a rate that complied with the water company requirements. An example of this is shown in Figure 1 below.

The results
This system, proposed as a change to the client’s design, enabled the following:
- Descope of attenuation tanks located in the basement, many metres below ground level
- Descope of pumps to enable attenuation tanks to discharge up into street level drainage
- Descope of pipework to carry water down to basement level and then back up to street level.
All of the above resulted in saving so much time and money. It also reduced exposure to many health and safety hazards, including those related to working at height to install significant quantities of pipework and working with electrical supplies to connect the pumps etc.
However, in addition to these many obvious and not insignificant benefits, this solution also gave rise to these wonderful environmental merits:
- Fewer materials at manufacture – e.g. attenuation tanks, pipework, pumps and MEP systems
- As a result of the above, assumed reduction in carbon emissions relating to delivery transport
- Simplified structural design/elements with Blue Roof system, compared to that of client’s design
- Reduction in labour requirements (reference all of the above) and therefore carbon emissions
- Reduction in operational energy requirements – Due to omission of pump arrangements
- Reduction in operational maintenance requirements and therefore carbon emissions.
This value engineering example demonstrates how design can influence so many aspects of our construction projects, especially from an environmental perspective. I have more examples and will share these with you in my blogs that follow.
Find out more
Pete is a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) via his membership of the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) and works for Jacobs.
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