A mysterious shipwreck suddenly appeared on the shores of a Newfoundland coastal community last month, believed to have been dislodged from the seabed by a fierce storm. Now, as a new storm barrels toward eastern Canada, the community is in a race against time to save it.
As soon as Shawn Bath and Trevor Croft, both from the Clean Harbours Initiative, heard about it, they grabbed their dive gear and rushed down to the beach. Swimming around the vessel, they attempted to secure it by slinging ropes across its 100-foot-long frame.
“It’s a pretty magical experience when you’re the first two people to stand on that ship in probably 200 years,” Croft told CNN.
Now, as a new storm approaches, the community is scrambling to stop the vessel being destroyed by the same elements that brought it to their shores.
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📸: Corey Purchase/AFP/Getty Images
A £400m UK government loan to the Tropical Forests Forever Facility tightens the link between embodied carbon and real forest outcomes. Bio‑based and renewable building materials will now be judged on credible, deforestation‑free supply chains as much as on glossy lifecycle assessment or whole life carbon assessment outputs, driving wider use of environmental product declarations (EPDs), green building materials and green building products. Expect stronger traceability, circular construction strategies and end‑of‑life reuse in construction when specifying low embodied carbon materials and low carbon construction materials to cut the carbon footprint of construction and support the circular economy in construction.
Updated damp and mould guidance from the Chartered Institute of Building and the Chartered Institute of Housing reframes indoor environmental quality as a health obligation, pressing social landlords towards whole‑house ventilation, insulation upgrades and continuous monitoring. The shift embeds sustainable building design and energy‑efficient buildings as compliance issues, with implications for life cycle cost, building lifecycle performance and net zero whole life carbon pathways recognised by BREEAM and BREEAM v7.
A new retrofit procurement guide uses public spending to expand capacity, create local jobs and tackle skills shortages by baking training and labour targets into contracts. This gives sustainable construction and decarbonising the built environment delivery teeth, promoting life cycle thinking in construction, resource efficiency in construction and eco‑design for buildings, alongside sustainable material specification and low carbon building upgrades that support carbon neutral construction.
Escalating climate risks—from European wildfires to transboundary smoke and cascading Himalayan floods—are accelerating environmental sustainability in construction and sustainable urban development. Design for resilience is becoming core to net zero carbon buildings and green construction, with fire‑hardening, smoke filtration, heat‑safe interiors and green infrastructure specified to reduce the environmental impact of construction, deliver carbon footprint reduction over whole life carbon and strengthen eco‑friendly construction and sustainable architecture.
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