MMC and net zero: an environmental panacea?

COMMENT Not everyone has heard of the Sixth Carbon Budget, but it is essential to progressing net zero in the UK housing sector. Announced earlier this year, the Climate Change Committee’s Sixth Carbon Budget sets in law the UK’s climate change targets, namely cutting emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. Furthermore, it promises to bring the UK more than three-quarters of the way to net zero by 2050, powerfully incentivising greener housing. The Carbon Budget will be the defining tool that leads developers to manage emissions more sustainably. But, it’s not just about targets; these goals require definitive actions. The CCC’s report calls for all businesses, housing developers included, to adopt low-carbon solutions. In April, responding to the government’s decision to adopt these targets, CCC chief executive Chris Stark said: “This is an important and historic decision… The UK has taken its place at the forefront of global efforts to reach net zero – crucial in the fight against climate change.” The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report has shown the need for urgent action. Now we have the tools. The right legislative and policy frameworks are defined. The green housing sector can push the right agenda at pace. We have the tools we need: modern methods of construction, net zero and the Carbon Budget. But unless we use well-defined proofs and metrics, there is still no guarantee that we are on an environmentally-meaningful path. Step-change for UK housing I comprehensively welcome both the Carbon Budget and the advisory papers that accompany it. They represent a step change for UK housing and buildings to massively up their game, on both retrofit and new low-carbon homes. Now, as a sector, we have the necessary boundaries to drive for sustainability, based on partnerships that secure green funding against technologies accredited on net zero criteria. We must use embodied, operational and organisational carbon criteria to do this. The sector should apply these against the lifecycle of products and technology. Done right, we can then as a country direct money at the most telling parts of the climate crisis, growing sustainable business and sustainable jobs too. A sector-wide promise I call on the sector as a whole to embrace the Carbon Budget. We must respond with strategies and definitions for corporate net zero pathways based on solid evidence. Unilateral benchmarking of carbon performance must ensure our efforts hit the most relevant and ambitious low-carbon metrics. There is absolutely no excuse for greenwash nor legacy approaches to net zero to remain. Every single company should be proving out its strategy and defining its impacts on carbon across organisation, supply chain, operations and more. Be brave: those who do this transparently have nothing to fear. Rather they have exciting transitions to embrace. They will be able to access plenty of green finance, fast, to roll out their low-carbon solutions, safe in the knowledge the appropriate carbon metrics and accreditations have been defined. Only with these steps will we see a transition to sustainable businesses, acting with passion and purpose on net zero. Finance and partnership, truth and solid research will be the tools to unlocking the very best of futures. Joseph Michael Daniels is founder and chief executive of Etopia Photo from Etopia Group