By Simon Wyatt, Sustainability Partner, Cundall
As an industry so heavily reliant on carbon, suggesting a building is net zero carbon is a big claim. The launch of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard last September is the most significant advancement the industry has made to define what a net zero carbon building would be. Prior to the UKNZCBS, all previous frameworks’ focus was limited to the housing and commercial office sectors only. For the first time we have clear definitions, guidance, and targets across a range of sectors and building types. Since the launch of the Standard, we have been engaging with industry peers to discuss its impact across all 13 sectors. As with any new standards entering the market, there was some initial apprehension on whether it would be wholeheartedly welcomed or dismissed as unrealistic. From my conversations with clients and industry peers, the reality is a sense of overwhelming positivity. There is a real desire to reduce carbon emission in the built environment, we just need the right metrics to measure against and targets to work towards.
While this is an encouraging development for the built environment, there are still some challenges to overcome to make the Standard more accessible and usable. Launching the Standard as a Pilot was intended to collect feedback and data from across the sectors and to work out how best to officially launch the standard later this year.
Some of the biggest concerns have been around the lack of a verification process for new buildings that have completed construction as the Standard is currently in use only and requires at least 12 months of operational data to gain verification. Additionally, a lack of a delineated approach to multi-let buildings poses a challenge, this is currently under review and is urgently needed.
A key aim for the Standard is to have a singular verification scheme which people can trust, whilst consequently preventing the current raft of greenwashing we are seeing across the industry. But the lack of a design verification scheme can lead to claims that a building has been ‘designed in accordance with the Standard’ and there will be no way to prove (or dispute) this. The reason for this is entirely rational, the technical committee are keen for the Standard to be in-use only to address the performance gap and drive real performance in use. But this can still be achieved by having an interim design standard with a strong requirement for them to verify in use once they have the data. A similar approach has been adopted by NABERS, which has a ‘design for performance’ scheme that verifies a building’s design potential with a commitment to verify in use. NABERS ‘Energy’ is their main in use verification scheme, which has been proven over the last decade to deliver real performance in use. Perhaps the Standard should do the same.
A minor concern is that the onsite renewable energy requirements are currently the same for all non-domestic building types which should be tweaked to consider the practicalities of different sectors. For example, light industry and logistic buildings typically have large un-utilised roof areas which could accommodate for PV panels. On the other hand, commercial office in urban environments typically have highly constrained roofs with ventilation plant, heat rejection plants all flighting for space with amenities such as green roofs and accessible terraces. The hope is that these will be addressed during the Pilot stage before the formal release later in the year.
In my view, several of the limits will also need to be modified for the first release, particularly for upfront embodied carbon which were based on limited data with a number of them not currently being achievable. That said, we have already delivered a range of projects across several sectors, including schools, offices, supermarkets and residential, which are already complying with the requirements of the Standard. But one sector where the standard seems to have been met with more trepidation is science and technology. These buildings come with their own complexities and are only at the beginning of their net zero carbon journeys. The range and extent of the sector is, arguably, greater than the other 12 sectors put together. For example, the requirements of biocontaiment laboratories are significantly different to those of a quantum computing project. Currently, there is only one energy use intensity (EUI) and upfront embodied carbon target for the sector due to a lack of existing data from science and technology buildings. The upfront embodied carbon limit is for the whole building, including the fit-out, and there is almost no current data to test the suitability of it. The amount of data available for the shell and core elements is reasonable, but there is still a long way to go.
From my conversations with several science and technology developers, they were initially excited by the prospect of the Standard as they were hoping to market their buildings as being net zero carbon to their potential tenants. But since the Standard is currently in use only and requires a year of operational data before it can be certified, they struggled to see the immediate benefits. Meaning that instead of marketing the building as net zero carbon, they are likely to have to market it with extremely onerous lease requirements for tenants to limit and report their operational energy use and embodied carbon of their fit outs if they want to comply with the Standard. This ultimately may exclude several potential occupiers. For example, some lifesaving research equipment may exceed the EUI limit on their own. Obviously, the benefit of this research has the potential to provide substantial wider environmental and social benefits. The pilot period offers the science and technology sector an opportunity to collate data to help inform and improve the Standard ready for its official launch. Especially with developing a range of subsectors limits to address the range and complexity of the sector. Collaboration with the likes of Constructing Science and The International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) will be vital in this regard.
The built environment has made great strides over the last few years. Hopefully, the introduction of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard will be the catalyst for action across all sectors. The question of whether we are being clear and ambitious enough remains. I believe that with a few tweaks to the Standard then we will be in the right place as long as they listen. What is certain is exciting times lie ahead.
