The government has said it will not mandate Whole Life Carbon Assessments (WLCAs) in building planning applications, contrary to the Environmental Audit Committee’s recommendation that assessments should be required for all large projects by 2025.
Instead, a voluntary approach to carbon reporting will be maintained, despite substantial evidence that the industry has the professional expertise and capacity to deliver these assessments.
The methodologies and standards for developing WLCAs have been well established across the building services sector, with the prominence of CIBSE TM65 and RICS whole life carbon assessment.
The UK’s annual embodied carbon emissions surpass that of the aviation and shipping sectors combined, and is estimated to be 64 million tonnes1. Not addressing embodied carbon missions is a major missed opportunity.
A large part of industry is in favour of the Part Z initiative, a proposal, supported by CIBSE, to amend Building Regulations to require WLCAs and introduce embodied carbon benchmarks. Investors are also increasingly demanding that buildings meet higher environmental, social and governance standards, thereby placing pressure on designers and developers to prioritise and address embodied carbon in their projects.
Local authorities have amplified their efforts to tackle carbon emissions, through increased investment and, for some, encouraging or mandating WLCA assessments in local plans. Incorporating WLCAs in national regulation would streamline processes for local authorities and larger housebuilders who are already addressing embodied carbon, reducing the cost and resource burden for them.
This also applies to international manufacturers, who face increasing pressure to produce carbon assessments of MEP products in other jurisdictions, such as Environmental Product Declarations in the European Union or life-cycle assessments in some US states.
The construction sector has the tools and expertise to lead on embodied carbon reduction, but the absence of policy certainty in the UK risks undermining their efforts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wranga Wardak is a policy and public affairs graduate at Mitsubishi Electric, on secondment at CIBSE
REFERENCES
1 Call to regulate embodied carbon, UKGBC