Our Managing Partner, Dr Helena Chen, was honored to share the panel on “Sustainable construction–tools to achieve environmental objectives in the climate change crisis” at the IPBA 2024 conference on 25 April 2024.
Helena’s presentation was focused on “Navigating Material and Waste Management Risks in Sustainable Construction.” By referring to cases, she provided the audience with practical strategies and insights from the perspective of a construction law expert.
Helena pointed out the significant environmental impacts of construction and demolition debris, including concrete, wood, asphalt, gypsum, and metals. Some of those are even hazardous. In addition, the buildings and construction sector is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for a 37% of global emissions, according to a 2023 Report. There is undoubtedly a pressing need to decarbonize building materials.
The Environmental 4R Principle—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rebuy—provides the steps we can take towards eco-friendly construction.
Adopting these measures might cause implications on construction timeline and costs. Also, there could be complexities of sourcing eco-friendly materials. To properly deal with such implications, early planning and ongoing management are the keys to successful risk management.
At the end of her presentation, Helena referred to the collaboration between Swancor, a Taiwanese listed company, and Siemens Gamesa in developing recyclable resins for producing recyclable wind turbine blades as an example of using recyclable materials in the renewable energy industry.
From left to right: Miranda Liu (Senior Partner, Stellex Law Firm); Jack Terceno (Partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer); Mirella Lechna-Marchewka (Managing Partner, Wardyński & Partners); Bill Barton (Director, Barton Legal Limited); Paul Sandosham (Partner, Clifford Chance Asia); Alfred Wu (Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright); Helena Chen (Managing Partner, Chen & Chang)
コメント