David Partridge, chair of the UK’s Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, discusses the development of a common standard in the UK built environment, and why it will be vital for both the industry – and the planet
When I became chair of UKGBC’s board of trustees in 2017, the main task facing us at that time was one of advocacy. We needed to make the built environment more aware of the impact that it was having on our planet and on climate change. The great financial crisis had effectively put paid to a promising resurgence of interest in this impending issue at the end of the noughties by focusing instead on repairing the global financial system.
Fast forward five years and climate change is firmly back on the agenda, driving a global interest in ESG reporting and a scramble of announcements about net zero carbon commitments from all walks of life.
I sense, however, that there is a risk that the energy crisis provoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with the cost of living crisis which has been exacerbated by post-pandemic induced supply chain crunches and inflation leading to higher interest rates, might all conspire to push climate change and the absolute imperative to achieve net zero carbon in order to meet our Paris commitments to the bottom of the agenda again.
This is why the initiative which has been taken by the Better Building Partnership, the BRE, the Carbon Trust, CIBSE, IStructE, LETI, RIBA, RICS and the UKGBC to write a common Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard in the UK built environment is more important than ever.
The construction sector is responsible for 40% of all carbon emissions
Being responsible for c40% of all carbon emissions, if this sector of the economy continues to emit carbon through its activities at the same rate as it has historically done so, it would single-handedly raise temperatures by +3%, double the Paris Accord targets.
In a recent leader, commenting on how ESG standards in public reporting are going out of favour, the Economist wrote “mandated standards and disclosures must be brought in more quickly, to help firms assess their exposure to higher carbon prices. Companies can save the planet – but only if doing so is good for business”.
They felt that they needed to say this because they detected an investor backlash against ESG for two reasons – firstly, because as more and more businesses have clamoured to prove their credentials in this area, it has become considered in some cases to be too “woke” to put the interests of the environment and other stakeholders ahead of those of shareholders, and secondly, because it has become harder to distinguish between “greenwashing” and the real metrics which will have a true impact on (in the case of the E in ESG) climate change.
Society needs to agree on clear, consistent, transparent and universally accepted metrics
I would argue that not saving the planet is not going to be good for anyone’s business. It is imperative that society agrees clear, consistent, transparent and universally accepted metrics for the impact of all of our activities on the climate.
For the UK built environment, this will be the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, which is being put together in a number of Task Groups – each one specialist in their specific fields of operational and embodied carbon, accounting standards and reporting and verification.
My job as chairman, along with my colleagues on the governance board, will be to ensure that the NZCBS Standard is, first, appropriate for and, second, adopted by key stakeholders in the built environment and real estate industries, who will be its primary users.
A common standard of measuring net zero carbon in the UK
In my mind, the buy-in of the following is absolutely critical to its adoption – the owners of, investors in and funders of real estate, and the valuers and accountants who will advise them; the contractors and their supply chain who will be responsible for both building and retrofitting our built estate; and finally, the housebuilders who serve the non-institutional market and the banks who will provide mortgages to that market.
If all the professional bodies who design our built environment – the people who build it, and the people who own it and those who finance it – can agree on and adopt a common standard of measurement for net zero carbon in the UK then we can start to achieve real traction with the myriad of individual initiatives already under way to cut down carbon emissions. Both in the operation of our buildings and through our activities in building and refurbishing them.
Without such a standard, these well-meaning but currently uncoordinated measures risk, at best, sowing confusion among all stakeholders in this sector and, at worst, allowing the backlash against ESG and short-term, knee-jerk responses in the name of energy resilience such as the present government’s granting of new North Sea licences and flirting with fracking, to put the Paris Accord targets for 2050 completely out of our reach.
That would be a disaster for our industry and our planet.
David Partridge
Chair, board of trustees
UK Green Building Council
