You may think you know what a new zero carbon building is, but everyone has their own ideas, it seems. What’s needed, some people think, is a single definition on which we can all agree.
That is why the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard is being put together – to provide a single agreed definition and methodology for the industry to determine exactly what constitutes a net zero carbon building.
Organisations behind the initiative include: Better Buildings Partnership (BBP), Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Carbon Trust, Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), the Low Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI), the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), and the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC).
The NZCBS coalition has set up governance and delivery teams and is now calling on anyone who works in the built environment sector to supply operational energy and embodied carbon performance data for their buildings. This is expected to support the development of their evidence base over the coming months.
Firstly, the NZCBS coalition is seeking operational energy data for buildings – specifically in-use consumption data from the best performing existing buildings, and modelled performance data for buildings in design or construction. This data will enable the NZCBS development team to understand what today’s benchmark for energy performance is, and what current and future best practice might look like. As part of this, the NZCBS is also calling for experts to assist with energy modelling.
Secondly, the NZCBS team is seeking embodied carbon data from both new construction and retrofit projects. This will enable them to set out benchmarks for embodied carbon emitted in the construction process of different building types across the UK.
David Partridge, chairman of property developer Related Argent and is chair of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard governance board. He said: “If the real estate industry and built environment is to seriously address its impact on climate change, a universally adopted Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard is absolutely essential. We are looking for built environment professionals to contribute data from a number of different asset types to develop a single, agreed methodology and for all stakeholders in the real estate industry who will be using the standard to get involved in order to formulate it appropriately. Please contribute to our call for evidence and join us in our update event to learn more about our plans and programme for developing and testing the standard.”
Participants are invited to submit data via the Built Environment Carbon Database. The deadline for submitting data is 16th December 2022.
For more details on the purpose, scope and process for supplying data, see the call for evidence guide on the NZCBS project website.
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