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Environmental Procedure
PROCEDURE: 3.6.7 Construction, Refurbishment and Maintenance of
buildings
Last updated: 24th April 2017
Department: Estates and Capital Development
Site: Aston University
Author: Energy, Environment & Sustainability Manager
Approved by: EMS Manager/ Director of Estates
PURPOSE:
 To minimise negative environmental impacts resulting from construction,
maintenance and refurbishment projects, and ensure appropriate
consideration of sustainability issues, including procurement of materials,
 To identify opportunities for environmental improvement in the design,
construction and use of buildings.
SCOPE:
All construction, refurbishment and maintenance projects across Aston University.
METHOD:
Director of Estates in collaboration with the Energy, Environment and Sustainability
Manager, is responsible for ensuring sustainability is considered in the design,
construction and use of all buildings.
All projects follow the Project Management Procedures. This sign posts the project
team to the relevant documents at the various stages of the project, including
highlighting contractor responsibilities.
Contractors are referred to various documents, depending on the work and the
location. Contractors are signposted to the Environmental Policies on the Internet
as detailed within the ‘Project Management Procedures’.
Before the contractors can start work, a site induction is completed by either the
Estates and Capital Development Health and Safety Advisor, the associated Project
Manager with Capital Developments or the Building Services Manager at Conference
Aston. For large projects AU induct the contractor/project site manager who then
inducts other contractors to AU guidelines. This induction covers environmental
issues and aspects for example waste management, material storage, gas/fuel store,
noise and vibration and any discharge of water/surface run off. Aspects of any
construction work which is likely to adversely affect the environment are noted and
reported to the Energy and Sustainability Team.
All demolition works must have the appropriate ecological surveys completed before the
scheme can begin on site e.g. bat surveys etc.
The Safety Code Of Practice For Contractors has a sub-section on waste
management. This details that “Contractors shall not deposit any waste, chemical or
any other substance into the University’s drains. The disposal of all waste, etc. arising
from the works shall be by a method agreed with the Supervising Officer and
regularly undertaken. Contractors must store and dispose of all of their waste
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produces responsibly; ensuring waste is only handled or dealt with by authorised
waste carriers and keep records (waste transfer notes) of all waste that have been
transfer by the licensed carrier.” Within tender documents a section on waste is also
included, that is tailor to suit each project.
The Building Refurbishment Guidelines provides a section - Appendix F that details
requirements in terms of energy and sustainability which must be followed during all
new build, refurbishment and building maintenance projects undertaken by (or on
behalf of) the University. This document lists requirements that are to be included at
the Design Stage of any new refurbishment and maintenance project.
For all refurbishment projects under £150,000 will work with contractors to ensure
that any aspects that meet the requirements within Appendix F are implemented.
For projects between £150,000 -£1million the project will be informally using the
Sustainable Refurbishment Building Scheme SKA HE methodology with the aim of
obtaining a GOLD rating, minimum SILVER. For projects over £1million the project
will be formally certified through SKA HE. A member of the Sustainability Team will
attend a number of key meetings throughout the project’s timeline to make sure that
the work is in line with the scheme’s requirements.
NB: The above is a general guidance and projects will be evaluated if they should be
SKA assessed or not depending on the details of the project i.e. some projects may
not have enough scope to get assessed.
For all new design buildings the University has developed a Sustainable Building
Specification that outlines requirements that need to be met. Similar to above a
member of the Sustainability Team will attend a number of key meetings throughout
the project’s timeline to make sure that the work is in line with the scheme’s
requirements.
Registration of the Considerate Constructors scheme is required for all works;
either on a site by site basis or on a company level for projects over £150,000 and if
they take more than 5 weeks to complete.
Monitoring and Measuring
 For most projects (especially those over £300K) a Site Waste Management
Plan will be completed using an Excel template to record the required data
e.g. the amount of material re-used or recycled. Monitoring of these will be
completed by the Sustainability Team
 SKA HE schemes will be detailed on the online SKA software with evidence
on the ECD shared drive
EFFECTS & ACTIONS ON NON-CONFORMANCE :
If this procedure is not applied it will result in:
 a potential failure to comply with statutory environmental legislation,
 a failure to identify opportunities for improving environmental performance
of buildings,
 a failure to comply with the various Environmental/Sustainability Policies
 a non-conformance with clauses of the EcoCampus Scheme or the ISO14001
standard.
Departures from this procedure are addressed using procedure 4.3.1
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Nonconformity, corrective action & preventive action.doc.
CHANGES TO THE PROCEDURE
REASON FOR THE CHANGE
5 September 2013: Reviewed procedure with the Head of Estates (Projects) to
ensure it was up-to-date
20th September 2013: Merged the operational and monitoring and measuring
procedures into one procedure
9th July 2014: Amended the procedure to reflect the repeal of the Site Waste
Management Plan Regulations
17th September 2014: amended to reflect current practices
th
27th May 2015: amended to reflect current practices
8th August 2016: addition of SKA scheme and changes to new build requirements
24th April 2017: amendment of SKA and new building details
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