Sustainable construction: Kier's cost-effective solution

We spoke to Simon Kelly – Operational Supply Chain Manager at Kier, to learn about their 47% energy savings and 34% CO2 emissions reduction in site accommodation for their project at Woodburn Primary School in Scotland. Here is what Simon shared with us.

One of my roles in Kier has been to develop and implement a sustainable site accommodation strategy for our operations in the construction division. In collaboration with our Sustainability Team this initiative integrates a broad range of sustainability measures into our site accommodation with a particular focus on reducing carbon emissions through energy efficiency.

Sustainability in the construction industry

The construction industry recognises the importance of sustainability and carbon reduction has become a key consideration in project evaluations and tender processes. We needed to find solutions that not only aligned with our sustainability goals but also remained cost-effective and practical for implementation across our diverse projects.

Finding an energy efficient solution

We explored a wide variety of options for making our site accommodation less carbon intensive by way of reducing electricity consumption. After thorough evaluation of their costs versus benefits, we found that smart energy controls such as measurable.energy's AI-powered sockets offered the most promising avenue for achieving our carbon reduction targets while remaining cost-efficient.

Implementing AI-powered sockets

The implementation process involved collaboration with our site accommodation supply chain partners, internal IT support and the measurable.energy team. Together we established protocols to streamline the process of having the equipment installed in the temporary buildings and measurable.energy provided all the support necessary and more, to ensure a smooth transition.

From a people perspective, the team at measurable.energy are friendly, great to work with, and they understand the challenges well. Their proactive approach helped to streamline the process.

Optimising spaces with real-time data

We like the functionality of the dashboard which provides great insight into how we use spaces and consume power. It has highlighted sockets that we're not using and enabled us to identify locations and appliances where we may be missing opportunities as well which will help us develop where we're going to put the sockets in the future to maximise the benefits even further.

Automating processes to enhance efficiency

One of our biggest drivers for choosing a solution was ‘how much human intervention does it need?’ Our Project Managers and their teams can’t be constantly thinking about incremental savings in carbon because they're busy keeping people safe, staying on programme, and maintaining budgets.

The project teams like the system because it enables them to meet their carbon reduction targets with minimum amounts of intervention, saving them time to focus on other priorities.

Cost savings and reinvestment opportunities 

The AI-powered sockets have helped us optimise energy use, reduce wasted power, and achieve significant cost savings:

Notwithstanding the commendable CO2 reductions, the cost benefit is important too. On this project, the payback period for the smart energy controls was around 4 months and this has given us the confidence to roll out the solution across all projects in the knowledge that the comparatively small investment required is actually very cost effective. It also gives us scope to re-invest the financial savings on other sustainability measures.

Looking to the future

Building on the success of this and our other projects, we have mandated the use of measurable.energy sockets in our site accommodation in Scotland and the North of England regions. Our aim is to expand this initiative nationwide, further enhancing our sustainability efforts and cost savings.

“I would highly recommend any project to utilise the measurable.energy products. Their team made it very easy for us to understand how their products work and how we could best save on energy and carbon costs on a project-by-project basis. The installation was quick and easy and can be carried out even by an in house/local electrician and moreover, the sockets themselves not only look smart but they also encourage site teams to use less energy during peak times through the built-in carbon indicator LEDs. Because of the savings made at Woodburn, which exceeded even measurable.energy’s initial estimates, we will be looking to install their systems on all new projects and even the regional offices in the future.”

Neil Morris – Environmental Advisor, Kier.