On 15 July, members from across The Housing Forum’s cross-sector membership met to discuss the latest issues in decarbonising existing housing stock and reducing emissions from new homes at our latest Decarbonisation & Sustainability Forum.
This event had a focus on embodied carbon, which is becoming increasingly important in the retrofit journey.
After a welcome by Shelagh Grant, Chief Executive of The Housing Forum, the event heard from three presenters:
Conventions for embodied and whole life carbon.
Adam Graveley, Head of Technical and Innovation at the Future Homes Hub, talked through the work of the Future Homes Hub in promoting the sustainability of the housebuilding sector.
The trajectories of operational carbon is decreasing rapidly with the introduction of the Future Homes Standard. However, there is little regulation as of yet for reducing embodied carbon.
The Future Homes Hub has been preparing the new homes sector for the measurement of whole life carbon, focusing on developing conventions and a simple tool, measuring and disclosing whole life carbon, carrying out comparative studies, and supporting EPD data being available.
The whole life carbon conventions help homebuilders assess the carbon impact of their design courses. These will allow greater transparency as the sector will have greater faith in the accuracy of measurements. The conventions provided a consistent set of input assumptions and an output framework which will provide greater consistency of measurement. They also require a transparency of assumptions, creating greater faith.
The new carbon assessment tools looks at high level data which can help to define projects, providing results quickly. The simplified approach helps homebuilders by moving assessment earlier in the design process, maximising the impact which it can have on decisions.
Looking ahead, homebuilders can join the measurement and disclosure pilot to inform the development of these new tools. Early next year, the tool will aim to differentiate by typology to create a targeted approach to reduction. Adam concluded his presentation calling on members to road test the tool, review its conventions and feed back to the Future Homes Hub.
Adam answered questions on who the leaders in the housing sector are in decarbonisation, what the largest challenge for decarbonising housing will be for the new government, and whether clients would be happier to pay more for an independent EPDs.
Embodied Carbon and Façades – how to reduce carbon emissions.
Tara Sabri, Façade Engineer at Wintech , looks at the differences of different facade designs for reducing embodied carbon.
Wintech has developed a methodology for calculating the embodied carbon from different façade design types.
Five percent of a building’s emissions come from the façade, as operational carbon emissions reduce the emissions from façades could be as high as 13%. The UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard will be out soon, which will contain embodied carbon benchmarks.
The GLA also have mandatory embodied targets for particularly large developments classed as referrable developments. These buildings require a whole-life carbon assessment at planning application submission, and also at post construction.
Tara presented a case study of how much embodied carbon would be in various façade typologies. When reducing carbon emissions, using less materials is most important, followed by specifying low carbon, and then offsetting.
Having a flat façade is a useful way to use less materials in construction. Using glass is also useful, but there is a trade-off between safety and reduced carbon, so choices have to be strategic depending on location and building type. In specifying lower carbon, clients can reduce waste, use more renewable energy, and manufacture more locally.
Tara answered questions on whether carbon efficiency tracking should be made mandatory for high risk buildings, what the next government should do to reduce emissions from façades.
RISE – for every step on your retrofit journey.
Jordane Shaw, Principal Consultant, Turner & Townsend explained RISE (Retrofit information support & expertise), a service which Turner & Townsend supports with for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
RISE is a completely free service to support and help registered providers, local authorities, and supply chain partners to develop good retrofit programmes. This is a development from SHRA, which was designed to implement the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.
RISE has already engaged with 297 English local authorities, upskilled over 6,800 individuals, and engaged over 440 registered providers. This has enabled £2.5bn of projects improved, coming up to 135,000 homes.
RISE provides a team offering in-depth advice, technical support and learning and development activity to help to realise retrofit goals. This comes in many forms, including masterclasses, toolkits, courses, roundtables, drop-in clinics, newsletters and podcasts.
Technical support can be provided via a self-assessment tool to help RISE understand a prospective client’s need. This is followed by a diagnostic call by a team of experts, a bespoke support plan defining the support clients can receive, a one-to-one support providing in-depth advice and support. Consortium support is tailored when projects can be delivered through working with others. Once clients are in a bid window, they can be offered a critical friend review, offering an independent check on project particulars.
Jordane answered questions on what the biggest issues in decarbonising housing stock currently are, what the lessons from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund are.
All three panellists then joined for a panel discussion. They answered questions on what the opportunities for decarbonisation across the next five years are, what most likely technologies to provide clean heat, and what the new government will mean for the retrofit agenda.
Thank you to all of our speakers for preparing such great presentations, and to the audience for attending the event.
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