Embodied Carbon: Buildings

The climate crisis is upon us. We in the UK are now in the midst of our third heatwave in less than three months. Communities have endured sweltering conditions that have put huge pressure on our NHS, our infrastructure and our natural environment. Our ambulance service has never been so busy. Tragically, lives have been lost as people have sought relief from the heat in rivers and lakes. Today, we have heard that it is estimated that there were 2,700 excess deaths due to just the May and June heatwaves. In my constituency, dozens of schools have had to close due to overheating. People are sweltering in hospitals, care homes and many other workplaces, and farmers and communities alike are facing critical water shortages. Extreme heat is no longer an occasional inconvenience, and neither are extreme storms and floods; they are now part of everyday life, and we know that things are getting worse. If we are serious about protecting future generations from climate breakdown, every sector must play its part in reducing emissions. Today I will focus on one sector that is rarely discussed, despite having an environmental footprint unlike any other. Globally, the construction of buildings contributes more than one tenth of the world’s carbon emissions—around four times the footprint of aviation. Here in the UK, the construction sector is responsible for fully 25% of the UK’s carbon footprint on a consumption basis. The built environment generates one third of the world’s waste—a figure surpassed only by food waste—and consumes nearly half of all the raw materials that we extract from the earth.

I thank the hon. Lady for giving such a thoughtful speech, and for leading this debate. As a chartered surveyor, I advised on some of Scotland’s first carbon-neutral developments. Does she agree that developers purchasing cleared sites often struggle to get the appropriate building research establishment environmental assessment method accreditation, due to shortcuts being taken by the previous owners of the sites during the demolition process?

The hon. Member makes an excellent point from a position of great expertise. That is precisely what this debate is about: we need to recognise that we should be reusing buildings as much as possible. We should be reducing the destruction caused by a failure to reuse. We should ensure that regulations are put in place that enable those who are developing, as well as those who have sites and responsibility for them, to take account of the whole life-cycle carbon assessment in deciding how to deal with a building. Let us take the waste hierarchy—reduce, reuse, recycle—into account in the construction sector, which is such a critical part of our nation’s carbon emissions.

The hon. Lady is making a very compelling speech about the importance of thinking on a whole-life basis about the carbon in buildings. Does she agree that we should think about the whole-life carbon impact of new buildings, and does her argument support the view that we have an opportunity to design buildings properly, so that they are cool in summer and warm in winter? Aureus school in my constituency is only 10 years old, but is incredibly hot in the summer.

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. Since I entered this place, I have been campaigning for homes and buildings that are truly fit for the future. We need to take this issue into account when we build and design buildings. We do not want to have to retrofit buildings at huge expense later on. We need to recognise that there are so many opportunities to deal with this at the design stage. The materials that we use in construction play a crucial role in reducing the need for active heating and cooling; they can allow us to incorporate passive elements. Measures to address the embodied carbon of buildings can also play a role in reducing the operational carbon impact of buildings. That is an excellent point, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for it. It is clear that the construction industry has a huge impact on both climate change and biodiversity loss. We rightly spend time discussing how efficiently buildings operate once they are occupied, but we spend remarkably little time discussing the emissions that occur before anybody even walks through the front door of a new building. Those emissions are known as embodied carbon—that is, the greenhouse gases emitted when we extract raw materials, process them into building materials and use them for construction. According to the UK Green Building Council, embodied carbon accounts for around 20% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions and is expected to account for fully half of the built environment’s emissions by 2035. Bizarrely, though, it has so far been ignored by central Government policy. Building regulations only set limits on a subset of operational emissions. The Government’s new future homes standard ignores embodied carbon and only tackles energy use in new homes, which is a small fraction of the total emissions from the built environment. The standard is silent on material use, construction processes and embodied carbon. These are not marginal omissions—they are large gaps in UK climate policy. The Environmental Audit Committee pointed this out several years ago, as have experts for years and years. The huge irony is that the construction sector is crying out for UK Government leadership in this area. We know that we have a housing crisis in this country. We need to build more houses—the right houses, in the right place, at the right price—and it is crucial to ensure that when we build, we do so in a way that is genuinely fit for the future, as we have discussed. That means using a whole-life carbon assessment to minimise both operational and embodied carbon emissions. The hugely frustrating thing for the construction sector is that the absence of national regulation in this area is creating more bureaucracy, not less. As a result of the Government failing to provide national direction, local planning authorities are increasingly stepping into the vacuum themselves. Recent research led by the University of Sheffield found that 61% of local planning authorities now reference embodied carbon in their planning policies, and 7% are moving to mandate assessments. I commend those councils for their ambition—they recognise the urgency of climate action and are taking real, tangible action. However, the consequence is fragmentation. Different authorities are adopting different reporting templates, different thresholds, different assessment requirements and different policy wording. As such, national house builders and developers are being forced to navigate an increasingly complex patchwork of local rules. They have to learn a new set of rules every time they build in a different local authority. Planning officials are duplicating work, and local authorities are developing parallel systems. Everyone is investing time and money in solving the same problem dozens of times over. The Government would not leave local authorities to tackle other aspects that are fundamental to building design, such as fire safety or equality. Those areas have national minimum standards that authorities can build on, so why are carbon emissions not treated the same? Do we not take climate breakdown as seriously as safety or equality?

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. In my constituency, we have the National Glass Centre building—a huge building, built 30 years ago, that unfortunately does not seem viable for its current use any longer. Rather than demolishing that building, as some are seeking to do, the council has been asked to consider article 4, which would remove implied permission to demolish without a full planning inquiry. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is the sort of work councils should be doing to make sure that proper scrutiny takes place, and that all possible alternative uses of a building such as the National Glass Centre have been exhausted before demolition is considered?

Absolutely. As we have discussed, we should reduce, reuse and recycle; let us make sure that every part of a building is reused in the best way possible. Demolition should be the absolute last resort, so it sounds like the hon. Gentleman’s planning authority is taking the right direction. Last year, I attended an embodied carbon industry summit, which was held just over the road from this House. At the summit, a simple question was asked of attendees: without Government intervention, will local embodied carbon rules become more consistent or more divergent? The response was absolutely resounding: the rules will continue to diverge without Government leadership. It is clear that national regulation on embodied carbon will reduce complexity for the construction industry, not increase it. It will replace fragmentation with consistency, create a national carbon dataset, and provide certainty for industry, while delivering meaningful carbon reductions. Surely that is exactly the kind of planning reform that this Government should want to achieve. As the Environmental Audit Committee highlighted in its 2022 report, “Building to net zero: costing carbon in construction”, regulating embodied carbon would be “the single most significant policy the Government could introduce” if they wish to tackle the reuse of buildings, the development of low-carbon materials and a reduction in these emissions. Why are we still waiting? The encouraging news is that the construction sector is not waiting for Government. For more than four years, more than 250 organisations from across the built environment sector have supported a campaign called “Part Z”, named after the various other parts of the building regulations. They have been calling for national embodied carbon regulation. Those companies are not asking the Government to invent something entirely new. Indeed, the same experts who developed “Part Z” have now produced the UK net zero carbon buildings standard, a ready-made framework that provides a practical route to compliance. It builds on the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ whole-life carbon assessment methodology, one of the most developed embodied carbon methodologies in the world. These documents could form the basis of future regulatory reporting requirements and, in time, a new approved document. The Government do not need to start from scratch; the construction industry has already done much of the hard work. Indeed, members of this Government used to be in support of such action. When a private Member’s Bill on embodied carbon was debated in 2022, Jonathan Reynolds, now the Government’s Chief Whip, and previously the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, said “We support it”—

Order. We do not talk about colleagues by their first and second names. We mention their constituencies, and if we are mentioning them, we give them the courtesy of letting them know that we will do so. I say that for future reference, to make sure that it does not happen again.

I am so sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. I stand entirely corrected. The aforementioned right hon. Gentleman said: “We support it. I agree with his proposition that industry would welcome further regulation in this area”. —[Official Report, 25 November 2022; Vol. 723, c. 620.] He was right then, and that statement is right now, because this is not regulation that industry fears; it is regulation that the construction sector is asking for. Industry is calling for this, because it provides a level playing field, creates local green jobs and boosts investment in lower-carbon materials. Good regulation rewards innovation, provides certainty for investment and gives British businesses the confidence to lead. The rest of the world is moving ahead in this area. The Netherlands has regulated embodied carbon for more than a decade. The EU requires reporting from 2028 and will have limits from 2030. Türkiye is requiring reporting from 2027. Several US states mandate reporting today. Meanwhile, Britain, despite having world-leading engineers, researchers and designers, risks falling behind. This is not simply an environmental issue; this is an industrial strategy issue. It is a planning reform issue and a housing issue. It is about whether Britain intends to lead or follow. Today, I ask the Minister for one thing above all else: national leadership. I ask for a clear pathway towards national regulation to measure and reduce embodied carbon, aligned with the direction already being taken by many of our international partners and by many in the construction industry. I ask that embodied carbon is finally recognised within national planning policy, replacing today’s fragmented patchwork with one coherent national approach. I ask the Government to consider using the UK net zero carbon buildings standard as the route to fast-tracking the compliance requirements, finally giving industry the certainty it has been requesting for years. When will the Government finally release their long-delayed circular economy growth plan, which could deal with embodied carbon at its core? Climate change is not hanging around, as we can see around us all the time, and embodied carbon is only making things worse. We can and must change that. We have the expertise, the methodology and the support from industry. Local authorities are crying out for consistency, and the standards have already been written—the only thing missing is national leadership. I call on the Minister to provide it.

I thank the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) for securing the debate, and for the constructive and consistent way in which she has pursued the issue of embodied carbon in buildings. I know that this is an issue of particular interest to her and to many other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor), the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson). I am sure that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire will continue to press the issue and keep it on the Government’s agenda. I should make it clear at the outset that the Government agree that action on embodied carbon in new buildings is important. If we are to meet our net zero targets, we cannot just look at energy use in occupation. We recently introduced the future homes and buildings standards, which will ensure that new buildings become zero carbon in operation once the electricity grid has decarbonised. However, we also need to understand the embodied carbon associated with materials, construction, maintenance, replacement and end-of-life treatment. As operational emissions fall, embodied carbon will become an increasingly important part of a building’s whole-life emissions. I know that the issue of embodied carbon in new buildings has been raised in the House before, and the Government are aware of proposals for embodied carbon assessments, approved methodologies, guidance, and central reporting. The Government recognise the aims behind those proposals: better data, more consistent measurement, greater transparency and, over time, a pathway towards reduction of embodied carbon in the country’s new buildings. Those are legitimate aims. Better measurement is an essential first step, because we cannot reduce what we do not understand. However, embodied carbon is not a single, simple number; it depends on a host of design choices, as well as assumptions about lifespan, data quality, construction methods, and end-of-life treatment. Different assumptions can produce different results for the same building, which is why the Government must be careful in considering whether and how to intervene. In July 2025 we published research from AECOM entitled “The practical, technical and economic impacts of measuring and reducing embodied carbon in new buildings”. It identified opportunities for industry to track and reduce carbon impacts, but it also identified challenges and barriers, including the need for better skills, more consistent methodologies, improved data, and practical tools.

As the Minister has pointed out, there is a need for more consistency. Does she not recognise that Government is the institution that can provide exactly the consistency that the sector requires?

What I will say is that despite those challenges, the Government recognise the excellent leadership already being shown by parts of the sector—which the hon. Member has described—in tackling embodied carbon. Parts of the construction supply chain are already working to measure and reduce whole-life carbon, and we saw that momentum at the conference at the end of last year that the hon. Member mentioned earlier. It was attended by officials from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, as well as the hon. Member, alongside industry and professional bodies. That summit highlighted both the appetite for action and the importance of consistency, better data infrastructure, and a phased approach to give industry appropriate time to adapt. The Government also support the work of the Future Homes Hub on embodied and whole-life carbon in new homes. The hub is developing an industry-led approach to reducing embodied and whole-life carbon, including work on voluntary measurement and disclosure, benchmarking, environmental product data, and practical tools for home builders. However, despite those excellent examples—and there will be many more that I have not mentioned—it would be wrong to assume that the whole construction industry is in the same place already for regulation, as is often claimed. While larger developers and consultancy teams may have the expertise and tools to carry out robust assessments, many smaller builders, local contractors and clients do not. There can also be varied costs in even assessing the whole life or embodied carbon of a project. The Government are therefore taking time to consider the right approach, but taking time does not mean inaction; it means doing the work properly. Rushed policy could lead to inconsistent assessments, poor-quality data, disputes about methodology, and perverse incentives. It could also drive the substitution of materials without proper regard to their safety, quality, durability or cost. Members will understand that the Government need to consider these issues in the round. We have ambitious housing delivery targets, and we are committed to making buildings safer. A policy that reduces reported embodied carbon, but which undermines safety, increases defects or slows housing delivery, would not serve the public well. In considering our approach, the Government must look at several areas: the methodology, the quality and coverage of data, the capacity of industry, the sequencing between measurement and reduction, and the economic impacts. A hospital, a high-rise block and a small housing scheme will not have the same constraints or carbon profile, and any future framework must recognise this. Some have raised the role of planning, which can be an important lever. The planning system provides the freedom for local authorities and developers to carry out carbon accounting. As the hon. Member for North Herefordshire described, some are already encouraging whole-life carbon assessment, but we must also be mindful of the cumulative demands placed on the planning system. The Government have recently consulted on proposed reforms to the national planning policy framework and other changes to the planning system. The consultation sought views on a revised framework, which would encourage applicants to reuse existing structures and materials, and give substantial weight to proposed development for existing buildings where this improves energy efficiency. We are analysing the feedback received and will publish our response in the summer. Any approach to embodied carbon must be considered alongside wider planning reform to ensure our policy is coherent, practical, and capable of supporting both sustainable development and the delivery of the homes and infrastructure that the country needs.

I thank the Minister for the point she is making about the role of local government. I think she heard what I said to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) about the National Glass Centre in my constituency. Would she encourage planning authorities, such as Sunderland city council, to fully consider alternative uses for very large buildings as they examine whether planning permission for demolition should be given?

My hon. Friend makes a very persuasive case, and I am sure that Sunderland city council will be listening to what he has said. I endorse his comments. Building regulations play an important role in setting minimum standards, but when we regulate, we need clear requirements, clear compliance routes and clear enforcement responsibilities. The Government are committed to reducing waste by moving to a circular economy and making significant reductions in carbon emissions. To achieve that, all sectors must play their part. For construction products, this includes increasing the reuse and recycling of products, choosing more sustainable products and improving information about environmental performance. Our construction products White Paper confirms an intention to remain consistent with the EU’s revised Construction Products Regulation where this meets our objectives, thereby protecting supply chains and reducing burdens on UK manufacturers. That extends to environmental aspects. However, reducing embodied carbon is not just about regulation or planning; product innovation, digital tools, professional training, voluntary disclosure and better design practice will all have a role. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is already taking forward work to grow the market for low-carbon industrial products, with an initial focus on steel, cement and concrete. It has committed to developing guidance for buyers and producers of construction products on embodied emissions reporting, product classifications and green procurement approaches. This guidance will help buyers to identify and compare lower-carbon products, and help producers to market them. That matters for buildings, because the choices made by designers depend on the products available to them and on information that they can trust. Better product-level carbon data can support better building-level decisions, but the two systems need to be aligned carefully rather than developed in isolation. The materials we use in buildings must be assessed in the round. Lower-carbon products offer real opportunities, but they must also be safe, durable, suitable for their intended use and supported by reliable information. The Government’s work on construction products reform and DESNZ’s work on low-carbon industrial products therefore point in the same direction, and are being developed to work together, with better information, greater confidence and a market capable of supporting both safety and decarbonisation. Let me be clear about what the Government are not saying. We are not saying that embodied carbon is too difficult to address, we are not saying the Government will have no role to play, and we are not saying complexity is a reason to put this issue in the “too hard” box. However, we are saying that complexity matters; unintended consequences matter; burdens on industry, local authorities and consumers matter; housing delivery and building safety matter; and net zero matters. The right policy must hold these objectives together. I therefore welcome today’s debate, and the challenge from Members who want the Government to move faster, but responsible Government sometimes means resisting the temptation to immediately reach for a simple answer to a complex problem. The Government’s position is that embodied carbon in new buildings is important. The direction of travel is towards better measurement and reduction. Industry leadership is welcome and necessary, and the Government must take the time to design an approach that is robust, proportionate and deliverable.

The Minister has outlined the complexities of regulating in this area as in any other area, and I am glad to hear her say that this does not mean the Government will do nothing. The Government would not say that fire safety is a complex area, and they therefore will not regulate. However, in this area, as I outlined in my speech, hundreds of industry experts have come together to create a framework that the Government could use as the basis for regulating. Does she recognise that so much of the preparatory work has already been done to address that complexity?

I recognise the hon. Member’s point. We are aware of the industry-led Part Z proposal, and setting expectations in this way is one possible approach to addressing the embodied carbon of new buildings. I recognise that there is a great deal of work already taking place across industry, and we are aware that parts of the sector have been coming together to encourage consistency and increase awareness and engagement. We know it is a challenge across the built environment and construction supply chains, and that is why we are considering the next steps very carefully. Ahead of any potential intervention, we want to understand the impacts on the sector. So we have commissioned research to help improve our understanding of the data currently available on embodied carbon, and identify where gaps and challenges lie. We will continue to work with industry, local government, professional bodies, environmental organisations and parliamentarians to consider the right levers for action. I again thank the hon. Member for securing this debate, and I look forward to continued engagement with her and with Members across the House as this important area of policy develops. Question put and agreed to.