Looking at the expenses associated with processing and distribution Yet, tools exist to help users find key information more quickly or be
of project paperwork, substantial quantifiable transport and manpower automatically notified when new information relevant to their interests
savings can also be achieved. For example, looking again at the appears on the web, for example:
BIW user community, we estimate distribution savings in excess of
400,000 litres of fuel and more than 2000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. • Sophisticated desktop search applications help users find
And with the average worker spending 30-120 minutes searching information quickly on their PCs
for documents each day, even a 50 per cent efficiency improvement • Most intranets and extranets incorporate powerful content search
can yield immediate productivity improvements and thus overhead engines
reductions. • ‘Feed readers’ deliver targeted content from RSS (“Really Simple
Syndication”) ‘feeds’ of updated content such as blog entries,
Many firms have invested in intranets to manage communications news headlines or podcasts
and both general and specialist knowledge within their organisations:
Arup, for example, has created numerous ‘communities of practice’ Building for sustainability
within the firm, where a combination of face-to-face and ‘virtual’
meetings – facilitated by the company’s intranet - are used to develop Designing for sustainability is probably most important in the
the firm’s intellectual capital in a wide variety of specialisms. Similarly, engineering, architectural and construction sectors. For example,
Bovis Lend Lease has ‘ikonnect’, a web-enabled information-sharing BIM applications are increasingly being used during design to provide
service that provides staff with quick and direct access to the best architects, engineers and designers with feedback about the impact
available knowledge anywhere in the company. of their design decisions on the BREEAM or EcoHomes ratings of
projects. Such tools allow design teams to continually assess the
Wiki technologies also have potential. For example, architects Fielden sustainability performance of their proposed designs.
Clegg Bradley and Edward Cullinan Associates have both deployed
intranet-based wikis to manage knowledge within their practice, They also have an increasingly sophisticated array of tools at their
allowing authorized users to add, edit and update information at any disposal to help them design new built assets more efficiently. These
time via a standard web-browser. tools can often also be deployed to:
As I’ve already mentioned, the explosion of electronic communication • Support more sustainable planning, design and construction,
and the proliferation of web-based information sources can create provide ‘carbon calculators’, albeit too often focused on the
‘information overload’, reducing individual productivity and efficiency. asset – its materials and its energy performance - rather than the
ecoexecutive | 60
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