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Submission from The Architects’ Journal’s RetroFirst campaign for reuse of existing buildings
(The Architects’ Journal is the leading magazine and website for UK architects)
10th July 2020
The Architects’ Journal
69-77 Paul Street
London EC2A 4NQ
020 3953 2600
www.architectsjournal.co.uk
The need to consider embodied carbon
The topic that the committee is investigating is a very important one and we fully support calls for the government to be more ambitious in rapidly bringing the UK’s housing stock up to much greater levels of energy efficiency.
However, in a climate crisis that Parliament has acknowledged, the government needs to focus not only on swiftly reducing the day-to-day emissions of buildings such as homes (operational carbon) but also on the carbon associated with producing buildings in the first place (embodied carbon). These are the two sides of the whole life carbon equation.
Worldwide, the construction industry consumes almost all the planet’s cement, 26 per cent of aluminium output, 50 per cent of steel production and 25 per cent of all plastics.
And precisely because of the way it gobbles up energy and resources, the industry’s carbon emissions are sky-high. In the UK, the construction industry produces no less than 45 per cent of the country’s total emissions according to Innovate UK. And around 10 per cent of this is produced by construction, it is estimated. As the government’s former chief environmental scientist, Ian Boyd, has said of our current economic system, ‘emissions are a symptom of consumption and, unless we reduce consumption, we’ll not reduce emissions’.
To give an example of the impact, The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has found that, by practical completion stage, 35 per cent of the whole-life carbon of a typical office development will already have been emitted, while the figure for residential is 51 per cent (see charts below).This staggering fact has only been properly grasped in the construction industry relatively recently.
As the RetroFirst campaign recommends, the answer is to reuse what we have and stop the wasteful cycle of demolition and rebuild which is currently our default approach. As Carl Elefante, former president of the American Institute of Architects, said: ‘The greenest building is the one that already exists’. For both new build and refurbishment, we should also seek to reuse construction materials through recycling or ideally reclamation wherever possible.
In terms of reducing carbon emissions, this is low hanging fruit. And the RetroFirst approach could go hand-in-hand with delivering the government’s election manifesto pledge to spend £9bn on improving the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals.
This is especially important since 80% of the buildings we will have in 2050 have already been built[i] and because Britain currently has the oldest and coldest housing stock within the EU.[ii]
The AJ RetroFirst campaign and who’s backing it
We at the Architects’ Journal launched the campaign last September and its name refers to the notion of putting retrofitting and refurbishment first.
We now have substantial backing from almost 190 architect practices including 14 winners of the RIBA Stirling Prize. The campaign is also being assisted by key contributor the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN).
With widespread support across the industry, other RetroFirst supporters include:
What additional policy interventions are needed for social housing, leaseholders, landlord and tenants?
The RetroFirst campaign calls for reform in three different areas– tax, policy and procurement.
It is perverse that the tax system incentivises brand-new construction (which often involves wasteful demolition) while punishing re-use and renewal despite their many social, economic and environmental benefits. Up until now the need to comply with EU regulations has often been offered as an excuse not to change this. Post Brexit, we will have the freedom to rebalance the system.[iii]
Our primary proposal could be achieved by rebalancing the tax burden which falls upon retrofit as opposed to new build following a calculation of the two sectors’ respective revenue contributions.
If implemented, this reduction in VAT on refurbishment would boost efforts to increase the energy efficiency of existing buildings, by providing an incentive to homeowners, landlords, housing associations & local authorities.
And if the Treasury proved unwilling to rebalance the tax burden, there are other low cost or cost-neutral options available which would also help incentivise retrofit and refurbishment.[iv]
This could be done by adding clauses to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)[v] and reforming the Building Regulations.[vi]
We propose the government should lead from the front on building reuse which would also help stimulate the market in retrofit products and skills. Since the public sector owns more than 260,000 properties and spends more than £20 billion a year on running costs[vii] such a retrofitting drive could also achieve substantial cost savings.
If not now, then when?
Overall, we believe that adopting such RetroFirst reforms would help make the UK a true international leader on climate change ahead of the COP 26 summit and make our drive to make existing buildings more energy efficient more effective and coherent.
Since we launched the campaign, we have published extensively on this subject including many case studies and in-depth features. These can be found at www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/retrofirst
We would be more than happy to share further material with the committee should that be helpful in order to take this important agenda forward.
Will Hurst, managing editor, The Architects’ Journal, 10th July 2020
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[i] Source: UK Green Building Council.
[ii] Source: 2014 ENTRANZE report Laying Down the Pathways to Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings.
[iii] The UK could even now drop VAT on refurbishment to 0%, an option forbidden under EU rules.
[iv] One option might be to remove VAT only for ‘deep low carbon eco-retrofit’ projects, as a recent Change.org petition by architect Harry Paticas proposes. Alternatively, the Treasury might wish to combine its approach with the ‘levelling up’ agenda and provide grants to retrofit social housing specifically. This would contribute to our net zero target while also lowering the fuel bills of the poorest households.
[v] Whole Life Carbon assessments could be mandated through the NPPF at pre-application and planning stage, a policy soon to be trialled on major developments in London (https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/planning/implementing-london-plan/planning-guidance/whole-life-cycle-carbon-assessments-guidance-pre-consultation-draft). Further incentive could be created by amending the NPPF to insert a ‘presumption in favour of refurbishment’ as a subset of the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’. This could be bolstered by a requirement for any application proposing demolition of an existing building to demonstrate that reuse of the existing structure was first explored through a new ‘sequential test’ for prospective developments.
[vi] The Building Regulations could be reviewed to include a requirement for Whole Life Carbon Assessments. This was recommended in a 2019 report commissioned by the Committee on Climate Change, suggesting a five year period to allow the industry time to adapt, and this would tip the balance in favour of the widespread retention of existing structures. https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/options-for-incorporating-embodied-and-sequestered-carbon-into-the-building-standards-framework-aecom/ Furthermore, a 2018 report by Bionova illustrates how embodied carbon policies are being implemented in multiple states in the USA, and in other countries such as France. As the report points out “Governments have also played a role in this development, implementing policies that work together with the marketplace players.” https://www.buildup.eu/en/practices/publications/embodied-carbon-review-embodied-carbon-reduction-100-regulations-and-rating
[vii] Source: Cabinet Office