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A new bill scheduled to be introduced in Parliament by a Conservative MP next week proposes putting a limit on the amount of carbon new buildings are allowed to emit in their construction.
The Carbon Emissions Bill is due to be brought forward on 2 February by Duncan Baker, MP for North Norfolk and a member of the Environmental Audit Select Committee. The bill has won support from numerous large property and construction companies, including Landsec, Lendlease, abrdn and Laing O’Rourke.
The bill is designed to help the real estate and construction industries cut carbon emissions and play their part in helping the UK hit its net-zero carbon goal.
In a foreword to the bill, Baker said the real estate industry had focused on cutting the carbon emitted during the operation of buildings, but not so much the embodied carbon emitted during their construction, for example in the manufacturing process of steel and cement.
“Every year these embodied carbon emissions total 40 to 50 million tonnes in the UK,” Baker wrote. “That’s more than aviation and shipping combined. But presently there is no law in place that places any restriction on how much embodied carbon can be emitted when we construct our buildings. No law to regulate up to 50 million tonnes of carbon.”
The new bill proposes a twofold change to current building regulations. First, developers and construction companies would need to report the amount of carbon emitted by the construction of new projects.
Second, the amount of carbon that can be emitted by a new project’s construction would be limited, with the limit reducing over time. The new rules would come in between 2023 and 2027.
“Landsec … fully supports these assessments becoming a legal requirement as part of building regulations,” Landsec Head Of Sustainability Jennie Colville wrote in a statement of support. “This is to ensure that the whole impact of a building is accounted for and we have clear and measurable ways of achieving the emissions reductions needed to get to net zero.”
“Unless we start to regulate the use of [materials in buildings] in terms of the embodied carbon impact we are missing the proverbial elephant in the room,” Lendlease Managing Director Of Sustainability and Social Impact - Europe Paul King wrote.
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