Aberdeen is arguably best known for two things: granite – found in nearby quarries and used to construct almost all of the coastal city’s buildings – and oil. After the discovery of a significant reserve in the North Sea in the 1970s, Aberdeen became known as Europe’s oil capital and a thriving oil and gas industry sprang up in Scotland’s north-east.
At the centre of the boom was the multinational company Shell, which built a five-storey modernist headquarters in the city’s Tullos area, from where it operated for half a century, before moving last year. Now the building has become the subject of a bitter row after Shell announced its intention to demolish rather than upgrade and repurpose it.
The company notified Aberdeen city council of its plans in mid-July. Since then, an open letter has been signed by more than 40 local architects, academics and climate activists raising concerns about the carbon emissions associated with destroying rather than reusing the building. Shell has not yet revealed its plans for the site.
“The environmental impact assessment conducted for Shell fails to measure or consider the carbon emissions relating to demolition in any way,” reads the letter. “Yet the emissions involved in processing, recycling and transporting all the elements of the demolished building will be vast, especially given the huge amount of concrete in the existing structure.”
Last month, the letter points out, the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, Michael Gove, overruled the planned demolition of the flagship Marks & Spencer store on London’s Oxford Street, in part because of the carbon footprint and environmental implications of destruction.
Doing so saved an estimated 40,000 tonnes of carbon, an amount which could only have been offset by the planting of 2.4m trees.
While much of the focus has been on Shell’s oilfields, campaigners say the emissions involved in processing, recycling and transporting all the elements of the demolished building would be vast. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
And while Shell and the council have referred to an assessment which determined demolition as the only feasible plan for the building, this has not been made publicly available, the letter’s signatories claim.
Matthew Clubb, owner of Aberdeen-based architectural design practice mwclubb, and the original writer of the letter, said it was “no surprise” that Shell wanted to demolish the building.
The company has “abandoned a transition to renewable energy in any meaningful way, in favour of climate-wrecking profits,” Clubb said. “So failing to even measure the emissions from their buildings and construction projects is entirely consistent with that mentality.” He added: “To me, it seems that there are too many people trying to solve the global problem of climate emissions without thinking on the local scale.
“Even if we are to eventually demolish this building, where will we plant the 3m trees that…
2023-08-12 08:48:42
Original from www.theguardian.com
