City of London adopts new sustainability guidance for developers

The City of London Corporation’s planning and transportation committee has approved new sustainability guidance for the built environment sector, to be adopted within the coming weeks. The document provides advice on the design and construction of buildings. It is expected to help developers to achieve best practice outcomes for their sites, as well as contribute to the wider sustainability of the Square Mile and Greater London. Key areas of change include guidance about the City Corporation’s Retrofit First approach and on the application of the NABERS UK target, as well as introducing embodied carbon benchmarking, aligning to the Greater London Authority embodied carbon benchmarks. Five sustainability themes covered in the new document include the reuse of existing buildings, flood risk management, green infrastructure, minimising waste and measures to reduce whole life-cycle carbon and operational energy emissions. Shravan Joshi, chairman of planning and transport committee at the City of London Corporation, said: “The committee’s approval of the planning for sustainability supplementary planning document is a major step forward for the City Corporation in pursuit of its decarbonisation goals. “This new guidance provides transparency to the built environment sector, encouraging it to come with us on this journey, as we see continued confidence and demand for high quality, sustainable office space in the Square Mile.” Photo © City of London Corporation