Life sciences developments and transport – business as usual?
In addition to securing the huge increases in power and water supplies required by labs, transport planning plays a key role in addressing some of the key challenges these developments face, and ensuring that they are efficient and functional buildings aligned with developers’ sustainability goals.
Waste management
In designing operational waste strategies for offices, architects and developers alike know that deliveries come in, and waste in the form of paper and coffee grounds goes out. For a building accommodating life sciences labs, however, there is a little more to consider.
With a much broader range of material and types of waste, including clinical and potentially hazardous waste, being delivered to – and removed from – these sites, life sciences labs need bespoke delivery and servicing strategies to ensure this can be managed without impacting the operation of the wider development, and is safely contained.
In providing detailed forecasts for delivery types and vehicle numbers at an early stage, these strategies can be baked into building designs, ensuring sufficient capacity for deliveries is provided across as few vehicles as possible, and that all waste can be disposed of safely.
Operational emissions
The global urgency to combat climate change has spurred an unprecedented push toward achieving net-zero carbon emissions, both in the construction and operation of buildings. Developments accommodating life sciences, where energy-intensive laboratories and research facilities mean higher operational emissions, need to work harder in other areas to try to meet net-zero requirements. Transport planning must therefore be interwoven and linked with the design to reduce operational emissions for these developments. By encouraging building users to travel sustainably, operational emissions can be reduced significantly.
To do this, sustainable transportation options that align with a development’s net-zero goals must be integrated into the design, and promoted to building users.
The use of public transport and walking, wheeling and cycling should also be encouraged amongst employees to support the overall reduction of carbon emissions of a development. This can be done based on in-depth postcode and data analysis to understand where building users travel from, how they travel, and therefore how to encourage more sustainable and shared means of transport. People who live 50 miles from their place of work are unlikely to cycle all the way, but free access to folding bikes in the office or lab might make the train a more attractive option than the car.
To reduce the emissions of those travelling by car, the provision of electric vehicle charging stations, priority parking for electric and hybrid vehicles, and incentivized carpooling programs can collectively contribute to reducing the carbon impact of the transportation associated with a facility.
In addition to supporting a net-zero development, this can support health and wellbeing agendas, sustainability targets, staff attraction and retention, and improving the amount of space on site available for alternative uses.
By considering delivery and waste strategies and opportunities for building users to travel sustainably at early design stages, we can design buildings that are truly flexible, and operate smoothly and sustainably under the demands of these cutting-edge spaces.
