Climate change and the built environment

One issue that cannot be overshadowed by ongoing political events is the pressing challenge of climate change. 

There was new UK legislation in June 2019 to enforce net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and of course various protests and strike action by Extinction Rebellion. 

Buildings generate emissions during the construction phase (including concrete and steel manufacture) and during operation of the building, especially as a result of heating and cooling.  The built environment is responsible for 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The Committee on Climate Change report in May 2019 “Net Zero – the UK’s Contribution to stopping global warming” (see link: https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Net-Zero-The-UKs-contribution-to-stopping-global-warming.pdf) warned that an estimated extra £15-20 billion will need to be invested in buildings by 2050 than would have been required without decarbonisation. In October 2019, the government announced plans to significantly improve the energy efficiency of commercial buildings. This includes improving the energy performance of rented commercial buildings and setting a minimum energy efficiency standard of Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) band B by 2030.  See link: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-go-further-and-faster-to-tackle-climate-change

The construction sector is looking at various ways to deliver solutions to make a difference and to achieve the net-zero carbon emissions including energy efficiency design in buildings, greener building materials, innovations in concrete manufacture and analysing and assessing the whole-life performance of buildings and assets. 

Just one example of where digital technology could input here is the creation of a digital replica of a building  (a so called digital twin) to better understand how buildings perform and may perform in the future.  It allows building owners and operators to connect various systems—from security, lighting to HVAC — to gather and analyse data, monitor and optimise performance of the building.  It would also allow testing of a whole range of hypothetical scenarios, say extreme weather conditions, to assess performance and see what does and does not work.  This is likely to create a huge amount of data and research is ongoing by the Centre for Digital Built Britain into how to create, manage and use such data.    

Ruth is one of our legal experts specialising in Construction.