Today, vineyard workers are confronting more hazardous conditions as the planet warms. Cary Quintana, a Northern California winemaker who partnered with the Guardian Vital project thinks most people in the wine industry are too focused on producing high-quality grapes and overlook the wellbeing of the people picking them.
Climate change puts outdoor workers at an increased risk of heat-related illness and death, making agricultural work, where laborers sustain up to five times more fatal injuries than other professions, even more dangerous. Yet most research focuses on heat’s impact on grapes, not on the people who harvest them.
“We’re missing the mark on the people,” Quintana said.
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Developers and contractors will need stronger whole life carbon assessment, lifecycle assessment, life cycle thinking in construction and life cycle cost discipline, backed by sustainable material specification, environmental product declarations (EPDs) and verified low embodied carbon materials.
The shift strengthens sustainable building design, low carbon design and eco-design for buildings, rewards low carbon construction materials and supports a circular economy in construction. It also raises the value of BREEAM and BREEAM v7 pathways for net zero whole life carbon, net zero carbon buildings and better control of the carbon footprint of construction.
UK backing for Agratas’s Somerset battery gigafactory and ITM Power’s Sheffield electrolyser expansion supports the industrial base behind green infrastructure, electrification and hydrogen systems, all of which matter for environmental sustainability in construction, energy-efficient buildings and low carbon building supply chains.
Record solar output is cleaning the grid faster, improving the case for all-electric sustainable design and carbon footprint reduction in operations. The harder challenge remains embodied carbon in materials, building lifecycle performance and the wider environmental impact of construction. A weaker UK market leaves sustainable building practices, circular construction strategies, end-of-life reuse in construction and the broader task of decarbonising the built environment dependent on execution, resource efficiency in construction and resilient supply chains.
Whole Life Carbon is a platform for the entire construction industry—both in the UK and internationally. We track the latest publications, debates, and events related to whole life guidance and sustainability. If you have any enquiries or opinions to share, please do
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