As greater awareness and concern about global warming continues to increase, carbon emissions as a result of construction activity are coming under greater scrutiny. The World Green Building Council estimates that, globally, construction accounts for 11% of carbon emissions.
Local authorities, developers and other stakeholders with an interest in reducing carbon emissions are now actively paying more attention to the development processes and the impact of buildings on the environment throughout their entire life.
Indeed, a number of major cities, London included, are in the process of setting policy papers relating to control and standards to be applied in the construction industry across the various forms of development such as residential and commercial properties.
Whole Life Cycle Carbon emissions
One particular area of focus is Whole Life-Cycle Carbon (“WLC”) emissions. These are those carbon emissions resulting from the materials, construction and the use of a building over its entire life. This includes demolition and subsequent disposal of the deconstructed materials.
However, National Building Regulations and the Mayor of London’s net zero-carbon target for new developments which has applied to major residential developments since 2016 currently only address a building’s operational carbon emissions. Hence the need for change.
The primary aim of WLC assessment is to provide a true picture of a building’s carbon impact on the environment during its construction phase (raw material extraction, manufacture and transport of building materials, construction itself) and its operational period when, in fact, its carbon emissions may be at their peak as a result of maintenance, repair and replacement of materials.
A WLC assessment also gives significant credits in BREEAM and is a tool designed to answer the simple question: How sustainable is my product process?
Key players in the construction industry, from developers to engineers and architects, are expected to play their part in responding to the climate emergency by designing and building according to WLC principles.
The London Plan Policy
The City of London or Greater London Authority (“GLA”) has been working on preparing a policy to address WLC and the current draft London Plan Policy SI 2 (“LPP”) sets out requirements for developments to calculate and reduce WLC emissions.
WLC assessments are encouraged for all major applications, and London boroughs may choose to apply the policy and this guidance to non-referred applications. At this stage, however, the requirement only applies to planning applications which are referred to the Mayor for a decision.
The LPP explains how to prepare a WLC assessment and is for anyone involved in, or with an interest in, developing WLC assessments including planning applicants, developers, designers, energy consultants and local government officials.
Guidance is included in the LPP to explain how the assessment of these carbon emissions should be approached and presented and assessment template has also been produced which applicants are expected to use.
The process
Planning applicants are required to submit a WLC assessment at the following stages:
- pre-application Stage 1 submission (ie RIBA Stages 2/3);
- post-construction ie upon commencement of RIBA Stage 6 and prior to the building being handed over to the client. Generally, it would be expected that the assessment would be received three months post-construction.
The WLC assessment is to be carried out using a nationally recognised assessment methodology and needs to demonstrate the actions that have and will be taken to reduce WLC emissions.
The assessment must cover the development’s carbon emissions over the life-time of the building and not just the construction or operational phases.
It must also address the building operational carbon emissions (both regulated and unregulated, and its embodied carbon emissions. Any future potential carbon emissions ‘benefits’, post ‘end of building life’, including benefits from reuse and recycling of the materials in the main building structure such as steel or concrete and other materials such as glass, insulation and so on, need to be considered.
The GLA will review and examine assessments for:
- completeness of entry: has the WLC assessment template which provides separate tabs outlining the information that should be submitted at each stage been completed in full? This template can be downloaded from the GLA’s website;
- technical quality of methodology: does the assessment use the appropriate baseline, assessment tools and required methodology?
- reduction in WLC emissions:has the applicant demonstrated that actions have actually been taken to reduce WLC emissions?
- level of achievement: do the stated estimated and actual WLC emissions fall within the benchmarks?
Guidelines for assessing the environmental impacts of the built environment are provided by BSEN 15978: 2011: Sustainability of construction works: assessment of environmental performance of buildings and calculation method. This sets out the principles and calculation methods for whole life assessment of the environmental impacts from built projects based on their life-cycle assessment.
The WLC benchmarks are based on previous project assessments carried out by Cundall and Targeting Zero and have been cross referenced with data provided by Etool, Oneclick and Hilson Moran.
These assessments followed the RICS PS in terms of the scope of assessment, and material baseline assumptions and specifications and provide a range rather than a set value and are broken down into building components.
A further set of aspirational WLC benchmarks have been developed which are based on a 40% reduction in WLC emissions on the first set of WLC benchmarks. This is based on the World Green Building Council’s target to achieve a 40% reduction in WLC emissions by 2030.
Post construction assessment
At the planning stage, the relevant local authority can require a WLC assessment of the proposed building.
At the appropriate time applicants can complete the post construction tab of the WLC assessment template and, with supporting documentation, submit it to the GLA at: ZeroCarbonPlanning@london.gov.uk upon commencement of RIBA Stage 6 and prior to the building being handed over.
Generally, it is expected that the assessment will be received three months post-construction. Where the planning applicant is not the developer for the site then the responsibility for providing the WLC assessment at this stage falls to the developer. It is the planning applicant’s responsibility to ensure that the developer is aware of this requirement.
The post-construction WLC assessment will require an update of the information provided at planning submission stage (RIBA Stage 2/3) and for the actual WLC carbon emission figures to be reported. Applicants will need to update the WLC calculation results for all modules based on the actual materials, products and systems. For example, for Modules A1-A5 the actual transportation emissions from the delivery of materials, removal of waste and site work emissions.
Consultants handling WLC processes
There are a variety of consultancy involved in the process of WLC assessment and these include companies such as Hodkinson Consultancy, EnergistUK and Sphera.
Concluding thoughts
Addressing WLC is an important step to start tackling the environmental issues which the building industry as a whole creates. Appreciation that a building can cause adverse effects throughout its entire life, not only during its construction phase, is a concept that will continue to gain traction with the implementation of the LPP.
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