Four UK NZCBS strategies for developers
09.12.2024
An industry milestone
The UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (UK NZCBS) pilot is an industry milestone.
An unprecedented level of cross-industry collaboration and co-design has resulted in a highly influential voluntary standard.
But what will the implications be? What will it mean for specific stakeholder groups, such as developers?
Based on Elliott Wood's research and engagements with developer partners, here are our four strategic considerations.
1) It’s time to realign your embodied and whole lifecycle carbon limits
The majority of developers we work with are already operating their own policies for embodied and whole lifecycle carbon. Often these contain limits based on existing industry guidance (pre-NZCBS), such as LETI and UKGBC.
The UK NZCBS signals strong market demand for more ambitious industry standards. To derisk your projects, this means realigning with the new limits set within the UK NZCBS.
Your new limits and targets must be reviewed, costed and integrated within your ESG policy. For example, you’ll need to consider how you’ll integrate:
- An upfront carbon limit for PV systems of 750 kgCO2e/kWp
- New metrics for on-site renewable electricity generation based on building footprint
- A GWP limit for refrigerant systems of 677 kgCO2e/kg.
This is also a good opportunity to review calculation methodologies to align your procedures with the latest industry guidance (e.g. RICS v2).
2) Managing uncertainty: office fit-outs
We’re in a flux. From implementation to meeting the skill and labour gap, there will be feedback and a changeover period with uncertainties.
For example, the reporting of tenant fit-out items for office developments:
- The standard sets a whole building limit as well as a shell and core limit for office developments. Buildings must not exceed them.
- The shell and core limit could be implemented similarly to existing embodied carbon targets within construction contracts. However, it is not clear how they will be enforced on tenant works.
- It’s also not clear how embodied carbon of Cat B items — in particular FF&E — will be calculated.
3) Managing uncertainty: skills gap
The standard will catalyse innovation. We’ll see new products and technologies to address the growing need for low-carbon solutions specified in the standard.
But who will be able to use them?
The skills and labour gap must be addressed. Knowledge across the industry, the skillset needed to implement the standard at scale and people on the ground are top of mind.
There are no easy answers yet, but developers should prioritise these considerations as they develop their strategies.
4) Transparency and collaboration is the way
We now have industry consensus on the approach we need to stay within our carbon budget.
This is a huge collaborative achievement. Commendable because it was achieved without input from the government.
But we must keep the momentum. Being open and honest about our successes (and failures) is critical if we want to improve and meet the challenge set by the standard.
