A toolkit that examines the barriers to a circular economy, and present eight key enablers to overcome them.

System Enablers for a Circular Economy highlights systemic barriers and the policy and market-based solutions to enable the built environment industry to shift from a linear to a circular system. It identifies eight enablers that will encourage the shift from our current linear economic system; building a foundation upon which a circular economy across the built environment can become the default way of operating as we transition to net zero.

1. Greater collaboration and early engagement between industry stakeholders
2.  Establishing a marketplace for secondary construction materials
3.  Architecture practices characterised by circular economy design principles.
4.  Expanding the use of green contracts and leases
5.  Tax, legislation, and policy systems that direct industry and markets towards circularity.
6.  Scaling up green finance to stimulate business support for a circular economy.
7.  Enabling the industry to measure progress by having a set of consistent metrics, benchmarks and indicators.
8.  Educating practitioners and decision-makers with the necessary knowledge to be able to implement circular economy more widely.

The toolkit highlights how the transition to a circular economy will require a fundamental change in our economy. All levels of government, industry, and civil society will need to rally behind the common goal to shift from our current extractive and wasteful linear economy towards a regenerative, circular one. It also reveals that many of the solutions needed to deliver a circular economy available exist in today’s market and can be implemented immediately. For example, the greater use of circular economy design principles ensures a deconstructable and reusable approach to architecture that keeps construction materials in use.

Advancing Net Zero Partners

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

Circular Economy Project Partner

We’d like to thank the generous support of our circular economy project partner for making this project possible.

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UKGBC’s report ‘Building the case for Net Zero: Closing the gap towards net Zero Carbon new-build homes’ examines the design and cost implications of significantly reducing carbon across new homes on a low-rise 750-home residential development. This report is based on the same real-world proposed residential scheme in Cambridgeshire, Trumpington South, as our Building the Case for Net Zero: A case study for low-rise residential developments study, which focuses on reducing carbon in the masterplan. The reports are designed to complement one another and show the importance of considering the carbon impacts of both the individual homes and the masterplan together.  

The study provides insight into the challenges and opportunities industry will face as we close the gap between current new home delivery and genuine net zero carbon homes. The scope of the report includes both embodied carbon – structure and façade, and material selection – and operational energy and carbon – including building fabric and services as well as heating systems and renewables – and was based on capital costs in a 2021 context. 

The report aims to help local authorities, investors, developers and housebuilders – as well as stakeholders across the value chain – to better understand how to close the gap towards net zero carbon new-build homes. It is also relevant to national policy makers, as – at the time of writing – the Government prepares the consultation on the Future Homes Standard 2025. 

This report was only possible due to the support of our 2021-22 Advancing Net Zero Programme Partners, we’d like to thank them for their support.  

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‘How Circular Economy Principles can impact carbon and value’, seeks to increase understanding within the built environment industry of how circularity can support reductions in whole life carbon. It also seeks to enable project decision-makers and key built environment stakeholders to strengthen the business case for implementing circularity. It  demonstrates that circularity benefits not just carbon, but delivers against a much broader set of organisational, social, environmental, and financial aims. The research also offers a library of case studies which evidence the positive impact circularity is already delivering across new and existing projects within the UK.

A key conclusion of the report finds that many new and existing building projects have already used circular economy principles and are able to set out the resulting carbon reductions. Most notable is the level of carbon savings occurring through the reuse of existing assets and materials. For example, the case studies illustrate how significant upfront embodied carbon savings are being delivered through the reuse of existing structures, facades and steel.

The findings of this research are primarily intended to be used by project decision-makers and key built environment stakeholders seeking to strengthen the business case for implementing circularity across their projects. Although the focus of the report is on non-domestic and domestic buildings, findings will also likely be relevant to infrastructure projects.

With thanks to the 2021-22 Circular Economy Partners for their support of this project: 

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There is growing recognition of the need for nature-based solutions (NBS) to enhance the resilience of our ecosystems, built environments, and communities. Though, if NBS are to move beyond being a ‘nice-to-have’ asset or design feature, their value, as well as who benefits from them, must be more holistically understood.

This guidance, created collaboratively with the Value of Urban NBS task group, aims to help users to define the benefits and value they can draw from NBS, supporting them to develop their own business cases for investment, delivery, and maintenance of NBS, to further mainstream its consideration across industry.

If you have any questions on the guidance or would like to provide feedback, please email Kai.Liebetanz@ukgbc.org.

“This report is an important step to mainstreaming the integration of NBS in urban developments and provides some simple tools to anchor NBS at the core of projects. From raising awareness on the multiple benefits of NBS to developing innovative finance models, this guidance encourages decision makers to explore and implement the process of NBS integration.” 

Federated Hermes’ Head of Investment, Eoin Murray

“Nature-based solutions are an exceptional solution for the challenges of our time. NBS can play a critical role in futureproofing developments, provide much needed adaptation to climate-related risks, whilst also delivering benefits for biodiversity and nature.  

The current lack of awareness and understanding of the benefits associated with NBS has resulted in their financial value being consistently undercalculated. UKGBC’s report seeks to challenges the dominant narratives surrounding urban NBS delivery, providing a broader framing of its benefits, beneficiaries, and value that underpins a more holistic business case.” 

UKGBC’s Director of Business Transformation, Alastair ManT

“We are witnessing the stark reality of humanity’s consumptive approach to the planet’s resources with an alarming trend in nature loss, which not only contributes to climate change but is also accelerated by its impacts. Our industry needs to move beyond current compliance-based thinking to a regenerative one, recognising that the built environment can be a force for positive change. UKGBC’s guidance provides a practical framework for assessing the contribution of Nature based solutions to add value to a place, the neighbourhood and our environment. By creating opportunity and pathways for biodiversity through our urban spaces we can play our part in reversing this decline with a buildings and infrastructure that exist in harmony with nature and the environment.”

Troup Bywaters + Anders’ Managing Partner, Peter Anderson

This guidance has been made possible thanks to the UKGBC Resilience & Nature-Based Solutions Programme Partners: The John Ellerman Foundation, ARUP, BuroHappold, CBRE, Federated Hermes, Hoare Lea and ISG.

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Solutions to enable climate resilience within the built environment already exist, but they aren’t always common knowledge or well understood. And we don’t have time to individually search for them or generate new ideas from scratch. To help seek out some of the solutions, UKGBC launched two climate resilience challenges in January 2022, searching for the best solutions in need of greater profiling and adoption. These challenges were:  

1. How can communities and local authorities implement, maintain, and assess the impact of nature-based solutions to enhance climate resilience?  

1. How can existing buildings be made more resilient to climate change, with as little disruption to their occupants as possible, by 2030?  

The publication outlines our process for sourcing solutions to these challenges and profiles the solutions that significantly help address them.

UKGBC would like to thank the Member Judging Panel who helped with the evaluation of the solutions: 

• Kulbir Bhatti, Sustainability Manager, GPE
• Lea Vavrik, Sustainability Analyst, GPE
• Juliet Staples, Senior Project Manager URBAN GreenUP, Liverpool City Council
• Gillian Dick, Manager Spatial Planning – Research & Development, Glasgow City Council
• Robert Winch, ESG Consultant, Hoare Lea

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This report presents the findings of a feasibility study exploring the design and cost implications of delivering low carbon residential developments. The study looks at a real-world 750-home scheme, Trumpington South, and is intended to highlight the need for the measurement and mitigation of embodied carbon in the construction and property industry. 

The report reveals a number of easy and cost-effectiveness design interventions which can be applied at the masterplan level to achieve embodied carbon savings. The results also reveal that minimising embodied carbon has wider benefits, including enhanced climate resilience, increased nature and biodiversity, and improved resident amenity. 

To complement this report, UKGBC have published Building the case for Net Zero: Closing the gap towards net zero carbon new-build homes to demonstrate the feasibility of net zero homes. If you have any questions on this report or would like to provide feedback, please email ANZ@ukgbc.org. 

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Throughout 2021, UKGBC worked with a cross-industry team to develop a Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap (the Roadmap) for the UK built environment. The Roadmap project aims to outline a common vision and agree upon industry-wide actions for achieving net zero carbon in the construction, operation, and demolition of buildings and infrastructure in the UK.

Outputs

The main Roadmap elements include a carbon footprint for the UK built environment, a Net Zero Carbon trajectory to 2050, and policy recommendations with industry action plans to deliver the 2050 scenario. These outputs are published in an initial series of four reports:

• A Pathway to Net Zero for the UK Built Environment – aimed at stakeholders from across the built environment value chain who need an overview of the Roadmap findings and its implications for the sector. The report provides context for why the Roadmap exercise is critical to delivering the UK net zero goal, while also detailing the necessary technological shifts, policies and industry actions that can help deliver decarbonisation.
• Technical Report – provides detail on the project structure, the process for data collection, the key features of the calculation methodology and concludes with a description of the net zero scenario definition and results.
• Summary for Policy-Makers – aimed at central government, local authorities, and anyone interested in built environment policies. The Summary provides an overview of the relevant Roadmap findings and policy recommendations for central government to deliver a net zero built environment by 2050.
• Stakeholder Action Plans – sets out specific recommended actions for 14 key industry stakeholders, enabling them to play their part in achieving the Roadmap’s goals. As part of our work embedding the Roadmap in our sector, we’re hosting workshops with different stakeholders. Learn more here.

Interactive Graph

UKGBC is one of several European GBCs developing national Whole Life Carbon Roadmaps under the WorldGBC #BuildingLife project, funded by the Laudes Foundation and the Ikea Foundation. In the runup to COP26, WorldGBC has convened ten European Green Building Councils to galvanise climate action in the built environment through national and regional decarbonisation roadmaps. The Green Building Councils spearheading the project are Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK. BuildingLife is accelerating ambitions in the building sector by creating the first region-wide response to the vision of a net-zero whole-life carbon-built environment as set out in WorldGBC’s 2019 report.

Roadmap Project Partners

With thanks to the following organisations for their support of the Roadmap.

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Principles for Delivering Urban Nature-based Solutions

The principles and supporting information are primarily intended to be used by developers, owners, operators, and occupiers of buildings and infrastructure within an urban context. Specifically, those organisations’ decision makers, finance departments, marketing departments, design teams and sustainability professionals. The content will also be of value to engineers, architects, landscape architects, contractors, landscape contractors, planners, private house owners, professional bodies, national and local policy makers and environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The guidance outlines a range of steps that these organisations can take to adapt built assets to the physical risks from climate change whilst enhancing nature and creating social value. The report, its principles and their methods have been designed to assist industry to realise UKGBC’s 2030 sector ambition for all buildings and infrastructures to be climate resilient and maximise environmental net gains throughout their lifetime, via the prioritisation of NBS.

For information on UKGBC’s Resilience and NBS programme and previous related publications see here.