A round table of advocates of reduction strategies for tackling embodied carbon came together this week to discuss strategies for reducing embodied carbon in future new builds and retrofits, and revealed that it had been sidelined in favour of other initiatives such as the building safety agenda and the Future Homes Standard.
The Building Insights LIVE event, “Embodied Carbon Counts: The Transformational Power of the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard & Part Z” was held in London, partly to raise awareness of the crucial need to consider embodied carbon as part of sustainability drivers in projects. It included embodied carbon trailblazers such as Will Arnold of non-profit group Useful Simple Trust, who was the lead author of Part Z working with Government, and architect Simon Sturgis, who advised the Government’s Environmental Committee on whole-life carbon assessment in 2022.
The event was sponsored by Milbank Concrete Products, a precast specialist who have established a culture of transparent embodied carbon reporting on products. However, the group shared how industry could collaborate in order to both increase ‘carbon literacy’ inside and outside the sector, stimulating consumer demand, but also adopt certain proven carbon measurement routes such as the ‘taxonomy’ approach mandated in the EU.
There was consensus that the industry could not drive such innovations into the mainstream without strong regulation from Government, despite the strength of existing industry measures such as the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, and RICS whole life carbon assessment tools. In addition, early stage involvement of manufacturers and embodied carbon measurement was key to ensuring that it was not an afterthought in projects.
Lee Cowen, MD at Milbank Concrete Products, posed the key question to the group around how early in project designs material choices should be made (including consideration of their embodied carbon), “to have meaningful impact.” He said that currently, such crucial specification decisions could be left until a very late stage of projects, and embodied carbon was not considered by developers and clients in such scenarios.
James Parker, event chair and editor of ADF, commented: “Upfront carbon remains the missing link in central drives for sustainability in UK construction, apparently deprioritised by the Government in a difficult political climate around net zero. However, our round table showed that despite its absence in regulation such as the Future Homes Standard, there are signs that industry-borne frameworks for tackling embodied carbon are gaining a foothold.
“Our delegates confirmed that we are a long way from being able to say that embodied carbon limits and reporting are becoming part of mainstream production. Helping educate the sector on the benefits, including by growing ‘carbon literacy’ in events such as ours, and addressing misconceptions, is the first step on the road to verifiably sustainable projects.”
The full list of attendees was:
Will Arnold Head of Sustainable Materials, Useful Simple Trust
Kirsty Girvan Senior Policy Advisor, UKGBC
Tim den Dekker Associate, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Stephanie Baker Sustainability Consultant, SEES (Sadler Energy & Environmental Services)
Ewan Duffin Associate Director, Harley Haddow
Simon Sturgis Founder, Targeting Zero
Ivan Jovanovic Director, Sustainability & Environmental Design, Atelier Ten
Simon Wyatt Partner, Sustainability, Cundall
Ellen Willis Head of Sustainability, Chetwoods
Diego Padilla-Philipps Director of Decarbonisation, WSP
Sponsors’ Attendee:
Lee Cowen Managing Director, Milbank Concrete Products
A Building Insights podcast capturing highlights and recommendations from the discussion, will be available at: insights.netmagmedia.co.uk