“We’ve always done it that way”. Is there a more dangerous phrase in the demolition business? Is there a phrase that more accurately describes entrenched ideas and beliefs. Is there a single sentence that better sums up a refusal to move with the times; to adapt; and to overcome?

First of all, the phrase is wildly untrue. If, in fact, demolition contractors had ALWAYS done it that way, men would still be working at height with no protection aside from a cloth cap. Hydraulic excavators would be notable by their absence. All demolition would be manual; and injuries and fatalities would be unthinkably common.

But, aside from the inaccuracy of the phrase, there is a more worrying and underlying suggestion that there is no longer space nor demand for innovation.

Those that claim they have, in fact, always done it that way are operating in a new industry landscape in which they are under constant scrutiny. Their forebears did not have to contend with such exacting health and safety standards. They did not have to adhere to such demanding legislation and regulation. They did not have to concern themselves with climate change, sustainability and the imminent loss of their traditional fuel of choice. And they most certainly did not have to confront national and local governments attempting to push them to the very side-lines of modern society.

I do not believe the demolition sector to be Luddite by nature. In my experience, the opposite is true. Demolition folks are forever solving new challenges with previously unseen new solutions.

The problem seems to be that those solutions are very narrow, very vertical and often unique.

If an equipment manufacturer creates a new operating system or a new piece of control software, it is applied to hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of machines. However, if a demolition contractor develops a new way of getting debris from the top to the bottom of a structure, that system might work just once on a single troublesome building.

Contractors are so focused on the micro, they never have the time to ponder, create and develop the macro.

If demolition IS to prevail within the modern world, it MUST adapt. It MUST embrace technology in all its many forms. It MUST bend with the winds of sustainability. It MUST go with the flow of growing gender equality. And it MUST seek to become more than a one-trick pony whose work is merely the gateway to something far more important and memorable.

The alternative is as stark as it is obvious. Those that continue to insist that “they have always done it that way” might not be doing it for very much longer.

This article was first published on Demolition Insider where, for the time being, subscriptions are still FREE.

Picture the scene. The cowboys have gathered on a wide open plain where they are vulnerable to attack from all sides. There was some initial discussion of wagon circling but that seemed like a lot of hard work, so now those wagons are just strewn about the place offering no protection. A large fire in the middle of their encampment belches smoke high into the air for all to see. And the men speak so loudly that they can be heard for miles around. They have just topic of conversation – How to repel an impending attack from native tribes.

At that very moment, those native tribes DO attack. The cowboy’s conversation continues while their wagons are set ablaze. It continues while the cowboys’ horses are let loose and while their women are abducted. And they are still talking when the arrows hit and the bodies of the cowboys begin to fall.

On Wednesday 4 October, The National Federation of Demolition Contractors, the Institute of Demolition Engineers and the Health and Safety Executive gathered in London to deliver what was billed as a “planning masterclass”.

On the very same day and just up the road, an architect was delivering a lecture. But this was not just any lecture; it was The Conrad Lecture. And this was not just any architect; it was the Pritzker Prize-winning architect David Chipperfield – The Sitting Bull of the architect world. And he called for the introduction of RetroFirst planning regulations on embodied carbon in a bid to halt “the country’s tide of demolition projects.”

Speaking to Architects Journal managing editor Will Hurst, Chipperfield said: “We’d love, as architects, someone to tell us the rules of this particular chess game. But there’s only one thing: don’t knock a building down. You start a few hundred metres in front of everybody else if you don’t. Whatever you do, if you’ve knocked the building down, you can’t catch up and I think this has to start becoming a rule.”

With the words of the NFDC, IDE and HSE still echoing through the corridors of The Montague, David Chipperfield continued: “We have to move on tackling embodied carbon and I would say you are smelling that already now in planning discussions in London. The move has to be not ‘what’s the reason for keeping the building’ but ‘give us a convincing reason why you can’t keep it’.”

So on the same day that the demolition industry was offering its advice on the planning process, a notable architect – the latest in a long and growing line – was proposing new rules that could effectively remove demolition from the planning discussion entirely.

The demolition industry find itself outnumbered and outgunned; and it is standing against a rising and forceful tide of environmental concern and public sentiment. Sadly, it seems that the sector will only accept the true gravity of the embodied carbon threat when its world comes crashing down.

This article was first published on Demolition Insider where – for now – subscription is still free of charge.