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ROUND TABLE REVIEW
ADVOCATING FOR GROWING CARBON LITERACY With UKGBC reporting a poor level of embodied carbon reduction in the sector, Kirsty Girvan said that increasing ‘carbon literacy’ in construction was vital
He addressed the issue of potential unintended consequences from a shift to focusing on embodied carbon, and that there’s an “assumption that those consequences will be negative,” adding: “I think there will be a lot of positive unintended consequences.” Ven Dekker wanted to “dispel this myth that it’s really hard to do a good embodied carbon assessment,” but said that it was about not “wanting everything all at once,” but proceeding in incremental steps: “let’s focus on the easy bits fi rst.” Will Arnold characterised a mixed picture in the wider context of both increasing resistance to net zero as a goal, but also increasing uptake of embodied carbon reduction. He said the politicisation of net zero by populist parties had made it “way harder than it was three or four years ago,” however also that he saw clients “who want to act being more able to do so because of things like the NZCBS standard. Arnold said he was concerned that mainstream projects were being held back by the “wider rhetoric,” although it’s “easier than ever to do [embodied carbon reduction].” He concluded that developers were having to justify pushing the agenda on the basis of being “lower cost, lower risk, all these other metrics, they can’t justify it on being lower carbon.” Arnold cited one client that “was entirely justifying it around supply chain resilience – alternative cements that they don’t have to import, because of the global situation.” Our round table found that, as ever, capital cost is the most pervasive issue, with a downturn in the housing market having unfortunately hampered the case for investing in mainstream sustainability benefi ts, with speakers citing a lack of demand among consumers for higher sustainability homes. But Simon Wyatt of Cundall said that in certain sectors of the residential market, clients at the higher end of urban residential tend to be
powered by investors who are “driven by things like Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation in Europe,” with the EU having its own requirements on carbon assessment of projects. Will Arnold said that in writing the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, the key motivator was to “bring consistency” around a defi nition of a “green building” for fi nancial institutes to validate their investment. He said it “makes it far easier for a major bank to pay its green loans,” whereas until now, the fi nancial lever “[hasn’t been] working.”
Whole Life Assessment & EPDs Will Arnold called for a Ministerial Statement “setting out a timeline for introducing embodied carbon reporting, as a minimum.” He suggested this could be restricted to “products over a certain size,’ and it would give the signal the market needs, supporting all of the existing reporting initiatives, including AI-based. Simon Sturgis agreed, but added that Ministers should tackle “whole life carbon reporting, because to make a good design decision you need to understand the upfront, in-use embodied, and the energy use.” Stephanie Baker of consultant SEES added that whole life carbon assessment from cradle to grave and back around again, needs to be more in the forefront.”
Arnold said early engagement with the supply chain was needed in order to thrash out embodied carbon data, and den Dekker explained how Feilden Clegg Bradley’s carbon tool was now regularly used on projects – by 9,000 users. Diego Padilla-Philipps said however that UK designers needed to be incentivised to reduce embodied carbon, as in other markets.
Environmental Product Declarations should be standardised, as well as mandated, to harness their potential to drive reporting and
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ADF JULY/AUGUST 2026
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