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VIEW POINT
Architect and CIC Climate Change Expert Panel member Simon Sturgis tracks the progress of the UK’s emerging carbon standards, and how they can help architects reduce emissions, improve resource effi ciency, and future-proof building value.
T
he UK’s trajectory to net zero received a major boost in July with the launch of the UK’s Net Zero Carbon Building Standard’s (NZCBS) ‘Net Zero Carbon Aligned Verifi cation’. This follows the March launch of the NZCBS after a period of intense consultation. Important though the NZCBS is, it should not be seen in isolation. Also launched this May was the UKGBC’s ‘Whole Life Carbon Framework.’ Each of these builds on the RICS’s professional standard ‘Whole Life Carbon Assessment for the Built Environment - 2023’ (RICSPS). Finally, what has happened with Part Z, the carbon answer to Part L? I will try and make sense of how these work together. The NZCBS is the product of an industry-wide initiative to standardise carbon reporting. It is based on what must be achieved, project by project, for the built environment sector to contribute to the UK achieving net zero by 2050. Meeting the NZCBS’s ‘Limits’ therefore means making a measurable contribution to UK decarbonisation. At this stage, the Limits cover ‘upfront’ embodied carbon, up to practical completion, and ‘operational’ energy use. Both must be measured after practical completion using actual measured data rather than predictions.
The NZCBS also requires a full whole life carbon (WLC) assessment to be reported and will introduce Limits for life-cycle embodied carbon and WLC once suffi ciently robust data is available.
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
Rationalising these potentially confl icting requirements to achieve the optimum low carbon solutions requires good knowledge as well as practical experience
A further key feature is that the Limits become more demanding each year up to 2050. Broadly, the current Limits are achievable within existing technology and budgets. Over time, however, compliance will become more challenging as the
limits reduce. Designs will need to become more effi cient in form, material selection, design and construction to reduce upfront emissions, while also becoming more durable, low maintenance and energy effi cient to reduce in-use emissions. This
ADF OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2026
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