HS2 project adopts CESAR ECV scheme
UK’s largest infrastructure project leads the way with clean-air measures by adopting new plant emissions scheme
AS part of its bid to create ‘greener’ construction sites, by reducing emissions and controlling air quality, HS2 has become the first infrastructure project to adopt CESAR ECV – a new advanced emissions identification scheme.
HS2 has set strict emission requirements for both on- and off-road vehicles and plant. This includes compliance with strict emission requirements for all on-road vehicles including lorries, vans and cars, as well as all non-road mobile machinery including excavators, dumptrucks, diggers etc.
Over the last 12 months, HS2 has played a key role in helping the Construction Equipment Association (CEA) to develop the Emissions Compliance Verification (ECV) scheme and is now encouraging the industry to get on board. The ECV system fits with HS2’s Air Quality Strategy, which sets strict emission requirements for both on- and off-road vehicles and plant.
Complementing the existing CESAR security system, the new CESAR ECV system is a ‘bolt-on’ product that allows quick and easy verification of a machine’s emissions category and helps ensure that emissions from plant is reduced where it cannot be avoided.
A unique colour-coded label fitted to each machine carries a QR code that provides full emissions data, bringing major time and cost savings, better reliability, and giving assurance to local authorities and the public that the strict emission requirements are being met.
The CEA is working with its technical delivery partners Datatag ID to deliver the technology behind the ECV scheme, which powers the database and online portal.
There are also significant health and safety benefits from using the CESAR ECV scheme, which allows for quick confirmation of a machine’s emissions by sight, whereas previously an operative had to look under the bonnet to find the engine plate to confirm compliance.
HS2 is currently recommending the use of the scheme to contractors and supply chains across the project, a number of whom are already talking to the CEA about adopting the new scheme. OEMs JCB and Hitachi Construction Equipment have also recently approved the scheme and are now factory fitting the system as standard to all their machines in the UK and Ireland.
HS2’s Phase One air-quality lead, Andrea Davidson, said: ‘As the country’s largest infrastructure project, we have an opportunity to work with our partners and supply chain to create a greener way of designing and building the new railway. It’s important for us to provide assurances to local authorities and the public that we’re reducing emissions, tightly monitoring air quality and maintaining national air-quality standards.
‘The CESAR ECV system is one of many innovations we are supporting, and it’s now our job to embed it in the industry by encouraging our suppliers to use the new scheme as a tool for compliance assurance across all our sites.’
Rob Oliver, chief executive of the CEA, said: ‘The ECV initiative builds on a stunningly simple idea that those concerned with monitoring air quality need an easy and visible pointer to the rated emissions of machines on their construction sites. There is no bigger site than the national ribbon of development that is HS2, which has shown great interest in ECV since the get go.’
