ROUND TABLE REVIEW 25
reduction of embodied carbon. Ivan Jovanovich of Atelier Ten said Government had missed a trick, and that it should have demanded EPDs were “supplied for any product going into public buildings.” Lee Cowen said standardised EPDs could tackle the varied challenges in reporting embodied carbon in products. “Industry bodies produce generic EPDs for certain components that cover 40 or 50 suppliers that are bringing material in from all over the globe.” He stressed fi rms such as Milbank were “often brought in too late to infl uence what we can do to reduce cement or steel.”
Carbon literacy & the knowledge gap Sustainability specialist architect Ellen Willis said that a lack of early engagement fed into the industry’s poor record on selling its benefi ts, but also missed potential cost savings. She stressed it was important “not to underestimate the knowledge gap we have in the industry.” She said that increasing “baseline climate literacy” needed to be the focus, alongside consistent reporting across the industry, supporting this aim.
The knowledge gap extended to architects, said Simon Sturgis, and we needed to “develop carbon intuition” as a long-term strategy. “The numbers don’t really matter, you need people to do good things, and for carbon to just be like gravity or sunlight, just part of ‘what you do’ as an architect.”
Kirsty Girvan acknowledged this knowledge gap around what carbon reporting means in practice, and said it is actually amplifi ed by the fact there’s “lots of data out there.” She said that feedback from Government around Part Z was that “they’re just not sure because they’re nervous; not just in terms of how to engage with the supply chain, but how to understand that data.” Girvan said the “pushback” to Government should be that the sector propose to them “that if you implement parts, Tier 1 contractors for example will take it upon themselves to make sure that that is scaled up.” She added that the explanations required on data to increase that literacy “did not need to be complicated; it’s not lots of new training programmes, it’s literally ‘this is what this means,’ similar to an EPC.”
Stephanie Baker of consultant SEES said that designers were “asked to collect EPDs in BREEAM projects,” but “that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that anyone’s actually looking at them, and that anyone’s actually using that process to make decisions that impact the design and ultimately reduce carbon.” However, she said “it doesn’t necessarily matter where you start, I think it’s important to just start.” Cundall’s Simon Wyatt said that most contractors “sign up to embodied carbon targets for the entire building – it’s how you break that down into the sub-packages.”
Delegates highlighted the need to engage all disciplines in embodied carbon reporting, but also the challenges here. The chair James Parker cited product data directory NBS’ reported comments around the issues caused by sets of embodied carbon data being supplied in a piecemeal and inconsistent way by manufacturers, and the fi rm’s calls for a unifi ed framework. Lee Cowen said the concrete sector’s trade body had “worked with members to pull together information,” to provide a “generic EPD,” but added that the credibility of this “comes back to what is
the real truth of what is being delivered by the 40 or 50 members of the trade body, based on their supply chain.” He said that the Government should “take on board some kind of mandate around how reporting and EPDs are produced, and then hold the manufacturers to account.”
Solutions
The group shared ideas on 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. One was the ‘taxonomy’ approach of certifying all building elements on carbon emissions, which the EU has mandated (and which is backed by Simon Wyatt for one). Event sponsor Lee Cowen asked how early in projects choices on materials should be made “to have meaningful impact.” He said currently, such decisions could be left until a very late stage, and embodied carbon might not feature at all. Diego Padilla-Phillipps cautioned that the need for pre-stressed concrete meant higher strength precast concrete mixes in many projects, and Cowen once more highlighted “early engagement,” as the method to identify the ways to achieve performance while minimising emissions, but asserted “it doesn’t happen.” Ewan Duffi n emphasised that early stage design thinking could for example reduce a column grid, and “reduce concrete usage by 30%” on projects. Simon Sturgis advocated the ‘stick’ approach of a “mechanism [requiring developers] to report their square metre carbon rate, in the same way cars and fl ights do. If people are required to report, it will start the process where people then start comparing to things like the NZCBS, but also becomes a competitive issue.” He accepted Simon Wyatt’s assertion that EPCs “haven’t driven competition,” but said they were “absurdly inaccurate.” WSP’s Padilla-Phillips mentioned a “simplifi ed calculator” the
fi rm developed with the Future Homes Hub, to “access our data for different wall build-ups,” rather than having to “calculate every single level from scratch.” Simon Wyatt that working with LETI and the GLA had shown Cundall the benefi ts of “breaking down carbon budgets into specifi c disciplines like structural engineers, facades, MEP; where everyone knows their targets.” He added: “It’s how you optimise every single area, because you could have two buildings on two completely different foundations.” Simon Sturgis concluded: “What I come across time and again is people wanting quick answers, and that is quite often based on preconceptions. So, for example, the classic preconception is that concrete is bad, timber is good, but the concrete industry is making huge efforts to improve the performance of concrete.”
Incentives & scale
Attendees generally stressed the need for strong regulation fi rst on embodied carbon to force a pivot in the sector, but also a range of other possible incentives for embodied carbon reporting and minimisation. These included taxing virgin materials, and dropping VAT on other materials with low embodied carbon. Government- backed loans were another incentive (mooted by Ewan Duffi n) to drive low carbon residential construction. Several speakers at the round table noted that reporting
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