‘Everyone’s talking about embodied carbon – but still not early enough’

COMMENT This must be the year that real estate and construction – two of the most polluting sectors in the world – make far greater strides when it comes to decarbonisation. There is no doubt significant progress was made last year. The UK Green Building Council launched a Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap for the UK built environment, detailing the necessary actions that government and industry must take to achieve net zero across the sector. The first update of the ConstructZero Performance Framework was a step in the right direction and will provide the consistency that is critical for big builders to adopt practices to deliver net zero carbon buildings. But the fact remains that companies still need to be educated on what they need to do to set and meet net zero targets. The property and building industries are on the right track and have already made cuts to operational carbon in buildings. But as the grid decarbonises, the proportion of embodied carbon in buildings is only going to increase. It’s crucial that the key players in both sectors shift their focus to embodied carbon to help the UK hit its 2050 net zero goal. Exciting opportunity In recent years, carbon-reducing solutions and products have emerged that can be applied to new projects – these include products such as carbon-absorbing concrete and more energy-efficient insulated concrete. Other actions can also be taken, including reusing crushed concrete as aggregate in future batches of concrete, cement replacements can be utilised and polished concrete can be used as a floor finish to cut carbon emitted through flooring installation. Other simple actions that need to be implemented more widely include using biofuels to replace diesel in generators, recycling plastic waste into plastic paving and using less fossil fuels in the production of cement. While these actions are a good start, decisions around limiting embodied carbon need to be taken at the earliest possible stage of projects. Ultimately, we need to encourage architects and engineers to reduce embodied carbon at the very start of projects through the way buildings are designed and by adopting solutions related to big-ticket carbon items such as steel and cement. This is an exciting opportunity for new products and innovations across the sector. Test of time Cement accounts for 8% of global carbon emissions and, if it were a country, would be the world’s third-biggest emitter after China and the US. Therefore, I strongly believe that discussions around cement should be a central pillar at COP27. Global access to low-carbon cement needs to improve drastically, scalable technical solutions need to be developed and costs need to come down to ensure its use becomes more widespread. Everyone in the construction process – from developers and investors to suppliers and quantity surveyors – has a role in enabling the adoption of this critical material. Low-carbon cement is still a nascent industry, but it is growing quickly – as is acceptance across the building sector. Indeed, in a 2021 survey by multinational engineering group FLSmidth, 45% of respondents said they expect carbon capture to be an industry standard in cement by 2030, while around a third of those surveyed predicted that 10% of the industry would run carbon-capture solutions by 2030. Ultimately, we need better education across the entire sector on the impacts of material choices to mobilise radical change. We also need further encouragement of the measurement of whole-life carbon emissions across all construction projects to enable target setting for concrete and other significant material impacts. Last year was a good year for the real estate and construction sectors and we have demonstrated we can deliver net zero buildings. But 2022 and every year beyond needs to be much better. Now more than ever we need to ensure that low and zero-carbon practices and products take hold and contribute to projects that will stand the test of time. Steve Malkin is chief executive of Planet Mark Image courtesy of PR