Part of: Advancing Net Zero

Embodied Carbon

Embodied carbon from the construction and refurbishment of buildings currently makes up 20% of UK built environment emissions. While many leading developers and infrastructure organisations measure and optimise the embodied carbon footprint of their projects, it is far from being mainstream practice. UKGBC’s Advancing Net Zero team is working with experts across the industry to change this.

Despite being a significant source of carbon emissions in the UK, embodied carbon emissions are currently unregulated, and measurement and mitigation within construction is typically voluntary. As highlighted by UKGBC’s Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap, the accurate and consistent measurement and reporting of embodied carbon has become increasingly important to ensure meaningful and credible progress towards net zero carbon goals. To achieve this, it’s essential that embodied carbon moves quickly from being a challenge only addressed by leading organisations, to one that is tackled by stakeholders across the built environment industry.  

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Embodied Carbon measurement and reporting

UKGBC is currently working with a team of 80+ industry experts to develop new guidance that will enable industry to better understand and accurately measure and report embodied carbon emissions. The project has two key aims:  

  1. Understanding embodied carbon data: Provide insight into the development and variability of embodied carbon data, helping LCA practitioners to improve the reliability of their results  
  2. Scope 3 alignment: Provide guidance on how sustainability leadership teams can align their organisations Scope 3 reporting with embodied carbon calculations, and understanding how the two methods can feed into each other. 

This guidance is due for publication in Autumn 2023. If you would like to receive updates about this project, please subscribe to the Advancing Net Zero mailing list. 

Net Zero Solutions Forum

The Net Zero Solutions Forum is a space that brings together organisations from across the building value chain to share learnings and experiences of success and challenges on the pathway to net zero carbon. The Forum facilitates the active creation and promotion of solutions to common challenges, enabling net zero solutions to be scaled through industry-wide collaboration. Topics which the Forum is currently exploring include retrofit, whole life carbon, finance, and organisational commitment
Learn more and join the forum

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Advancing Net Zero Partners

Our climate change mitigation work is made possible thanks to the generous support of our Advancing Net Zero Programme Partners

Embodied Carbon Project Partners

Our Embodied Carbon measurement and reporting project is made possible due to the generous support of our project partners.