Help us develop the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard

The UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (NZCBS) will provide a single agreed definition and methodology for the industry to determine what constitutes a net zero carbon building.

The cross-industry group developing the Standard and championing this initiative includes representatives from Better Buildings Partnership (BBP), Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Carbon Trust, Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), Low Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI), Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), and UK Green Building Council (UKGBC).

Having established governance and delivery teams, the NZCBS coalition is now calling on UK built environment industry practitioners to supply operational energy and embodied carbon performance data for their buildings. This will support the development of their evidence base over the coming months.

Firstly, the NZCBS coalition is seeking operational energy data for buildings – specifically in-use consumption data from the best performing existing buildings, and modelled performance data for buildings in design or construction. This data will enable the NZCBS development team to understand what today’s benchmark for energy performance is, and what current and future best practice might look like.

As part of this, the NZCBS is also calling for experts to assist with energy modelling and more information can be found in the call for evidence guide.

The NZCBS team is also seeking embodied carbon data from both new construction and retrofit projects. This will enable the development team to set out benchmarks for embodied carbon emitted in the construction process of different building types across the UK.

Participants are invited to submit data via the Built Environment Carbon Database by 11th January 2023. The NZCBS call for evidence is also aligned with the launch of the beta version of the Built Environment Carbon Database.

Those with operational energy and embodied carbon performance data to share are encouraged to review the call for evidence guide, available on the project website with more detail on the process for supplying data.

For additional guidance on relevance and suitability of data required, the team can be contacted energydata@NZCbuildings.co.uk or Embodieddata@NZCBuildings.co.uk, depending on the type of data in question.

The NZCBS Technical Steering Group will also be hosting a webinar on Thursday 17th November at 9.30am. The webinar will include a general update on progress on the development of the Standard as well as an audience Q&A session.

Register to attend the webinar.

David Partridge, Chairman, Related Argent and Chair of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard Governance Board, said: “If the real estate industry and built environment is to seriously address its impact on climate change, a universally adopted Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard is absolutely essential.

“We are looking for built environment professionals to contribute data from a number of different asset types to develop a single, agreed methodology and for all stakeholders in the real estate industry who will be using the Standard, to get involved in order to formulate it appropriately.

“Please contribute to our call for evidence and join us in our update event to learn more about our plans and programme for developing and testing the Standard.”

Clara Begena George, LETI and Chair of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard Technical Steering Group said: “Not only will this project deliver much needed clarity on how to verify net zero carbon buildings in the UK, it also brings together key organisations that have been working in this space, to create a robust, industry led Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, created through consensus and collaboration based on science.”