Emissions generated in buildings by using electricity and burning fossil fuels for heating (operational carbon emissions) accounted for 23% of the UK total in 2019, according to Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
‘Decarbonising UK real estate’, the new RICS report outlines the main policy reforms needed to accelerate the reduction of both embodied and operational carbon emissions arising from real estate in line with national decarbonisation targets.
Through the Nationally Determined Contribution and the amended Climate Change Act 2008, the UK has committed to reducing its emissions by at least 68% by 2030 (in comparison to 1990 levels), and to reach net zero carbon by 2050.
Another 7% of emissions were ‘embodied’ into buildings during the manufacturing and construction stages due to the energy used in those processes.
Operational emissions have declined since the 1990s, mainly thanks to the switch to gas and electricity from coal, while embodied emissions have remained fairly stable, which has increased their relative importance.
In order to reach net zero by 2050 – both operational and embodied emissions must be dramatically reduced (by around 95% and 85% respectively).
To achieve such substantial reductions, the RICS set out a list of guidelines.
Some of these guidelines included designing and retrofitting buildings to minimise their operational energy demand, actively managing energy demand during the use stage to ensure that buildings perform to the best of their capacity, reusing and adapting existing buildings rather than constructing new ones, and designing spaces and structures efficiently, minimising waste and avoiding superfluous elements.
The report also outlined the importance of reducing the carbon intensity of electricity.
Calling for Government intervention, the RICS highlighted how lack of policy action to incentivise energy management at the use stage risks undermining the efforts made to construct and retrofit buildings to high levels of performance.
“A mandatory monitoring and disclosure rating – as is currently proposed by Government– is the necessary first step”, stated the report, “But actual incentives or penalties are needed to push owners and occupiers into action.
“In terms of embodied carbon, the complete lack of regulation creates a situation where an increasingly significant part of real estate emissions is not only uncontrolled, but not even measured.
“This means that we have little understanding of how much carbon is actually embodied in buildings, and very few incentives to reduce it.
“If the UK wants to deliver its ambitious national decarbonisation targets, the opportunity to reduce embodied emission in buildings cannot be missed.”
