Technology
Naylor Love offers free access to carbon calculator Naylor Love, New Zealand’s largest privately owned construction company, is offering other industry players free access to a carbon calculator it developed to help its clients visualise the potential carbon impacts of construction material choices.
Naylor Love Business Development director, Scott Watson, says “There is immense pressure on companies to be more sustainable, and that means new thinking leading to new practices, materials and innovative technology in construction.
The calculator was developed in 2019 as a result of a Naylor Love-commissioned research project looking at a typical sixstorey commercial building constructed in two ways – one using engineered timber and the other using conventional concrete and steel.
“We wanted to provide data that quickly demonstrates carbon benefits of engineered wood over alternative materials, alongside a cost-benefit analysis.
The calculator showed engineered timber model reduced carbon emissions by up to 90 percent.
“Clients want to be more sustainable and they want our help to achieve that. They also need the facts and figures that provide the rationale for their decisions. “We developed our tool in response to that demand, to help people change the way their buildings are designed and built.
“Until now we’ve regarded it as Naylor Love intellectual property, but we recently decided it’s more important to share it for the public good,” Scott says. “The more use the calculator gets, the more likely people are to select sustainable solutions.”
Naylor Love has constructed many engineered timber buildings including the Otago Polytechnic Student Village – one of the largest laminated wood buildings (by volume) in New Zealand.
Naylor Love has four major engineered timber projects commencing this year: • The A1 building for AUT • Otago Polytechnic Trade Training Centre • AgResearch scientific research centre • Ashburton library and civic centre. “Wood is essential in transitioning New Zealand to a carbon-neutral economy. It’s sustainable, renewable and less energyintensive to process compared to other construction materials,” Scott says.
Naylor Love Business Development director, Scott Watson.
require mandated departments and agencies to choose materials and construction processes that create the lowest upfront carbon emissions – in what is often referred to as the Government’s “wood first” approach. However, it’s not all smooth sailing, according to Scott. New Zealand needs to develop capacity in its supply chain.
Naylor Love’s approach echoes the Government’s stance on sustainability.
As experts in their field, Naylor Love is regularly called on to speak to individuals and groups keen to learn more about how they can incorporate engineered wood. Scott gives freely of his time, sharing the knowledge his company has built up and encouraging others to try engineered wood for themselves.
Last year Cabinet agreed that as part of its sustainable construction practices, it would
Naylor Love’s carbon calculator is available at: www.naylorlove.co.nz/carbon.
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