Some industry professionals are campaigning for a consistent approach to monitoring and even limiting projects’ embodied carbon in the built environment. We report.
Elegant is Deceuninck’s next generation window
Energy efficiency remains a key priority for social landlords when renovating their properties, especially since it is likely the current housing stock being upgraded today will remain in use until at least the next round of improvements.
“Helping households keep energy bills down to a minimum is a key role for new windows and doors in the social housing sector,” says John Duckworth, Director of Commercial Sales, Deceuninck.
“As energy costs rise, social landlords have a duty to improve homes’ insulation, while meeting ventilation and security requirements.
“But new windows and doors also meet a need to reduce buildings’ operational carbon – the carbon emissions associated with the energy used to heat, cool and light a building.”
John explains that improving the fabric of all buildings, along with decarbonising the heating systems – replacing gas boilers with heat pumps, for example – will help the UK meets its commitment to reach the net zero targets by 2050.
But he also points to how the overall approach to decarbonising the UK’s housing stock is inconsistent, and reducing the operational carbon emissions is only part of the picture.
“Increasingly, we are looking at the lifetime impact of construction on carbon emissions, which could ultimately change the way social landlords select contractors and suppliers,” John says.
“Around 1 in 10 tonnes of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions are so-called ‘embodied carbon’ emissions, related to the production and use of construction materials. They total 64 million tonnes of CO2e per year, more than the country’s aviation and shipping emissions combined.”
The figures were taken from a group of professionals from the Institution of Structural Engineers, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the University of Strathclyde, and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, who are pushing the government to introduce a Building Regulations amendment ‘Part Z’. This would set out requirements for the assessment of whole life carbon emissions, and limit embodied carbon emissions for all major building projects.
Deceuninck Calne Solar Panel Installation
“Despite their magnitude, embodied carbon emissions are unregulated in the UK,” the proposed document’s authors said. “Similar legislation has already been implemented in several European Countries, the state of California, and is in the latter stages of debate for cross-EU introduction – all demonstrating the feasibility for the UK to do the same.”
The introduction of an ‘Approved Document Z’ is supported by hundreds of businesses, including some of the largest UK housebuilders, developers, contractors and financial institutions.
Underpinning the push for Part Z is a need for consistency, since there is currently no uniform approach to measuring, monitoring and recording the embodied carbon in construction projects. And yet, the contribution of embodied carbon to a building’s lifetime carbon emissions is believed to outweigh the operational emissions.
“The new government has set itself an ambitious housebuilding target, but that doesn’t mean regulations need to be stripped back,” John says. “In fact, the UK was the first major economy to legislate for net zero in 2019, and limiting projects’ embodied carbon can go a long way toward achieving these goals.”
It would also create a level playing field when it comes to tendering for work, John believes.
“Claims on building product performance and sustainability are one thing – backing them up is another,” he says.
A study published by the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) found that 48% of supply chain managers did not believe their organisations were transparent enough with clients and regulators about sustainability.
A further 19% admitted not even knowing how sustainable their products were themselves, despite marketing claims about commitments made to sustainability.
The CIPS suggested a lack of procurement involvement in setting corporate sustainability strategy in the UK is at least partly to blame.
“It’s a particular problem in window and door specification – window contractors often don’t have that transparency or understanding of their own supply chains,” John says.
Deceuninck’s recycling centre
Deceuninck has established a lead on sustainability based on its commitment to the Science Based Targets (SBTi) programme, with a headline pledge to cut the CO2 emissions from its own operations (Scope 1&2) by 60% by 2030 from a 2021 baseline.
Cutting emissions by 21% last year puts Deceuninck already ahead of target.
Use of recycled material also delivers a reduction in CO2 emissions of 90,000 tonnes compared to virgin feedstocks as well as a 90% energy saving.
The focus the PVC-U building products industry has applied to sustainability, supporting its BRE Green Guide A+ rating.
“The PVC-U supply chain is comparatively short and most importantly, it’s transparent”, John says. “Critically, it is recyclable. Each window can be recycled up to 10 times without degradation of performance.”
Elegant is Deceuninck’s next generation window, which delivers a step change in performance achieving U-values as low as 0.8W/m2K.
Forming a key element of the systems company’s wider award-winning sustainability strategy the next generation fiberglass composite window system also delivers on aesthetics with contemporary minimalist features.
These replicate aluminium in an advanced, low maintenance and energy efficient, composite system and can also be combined with Decoroc, Deceuninck’s next generation finish, so fitted alongside aluminium products as part of dual-specification installations.
“It’s about the circular economy,” John says. “Creating next generation products from old ones which deliver a better level of performance through-life and which are being and can be recycled more easily at end-of life.
“PVC-U is energy efficient, it’s low maintenance, recyclable and far easier to be recycled than many other products which are seen to be sustainable – for example timber.
“What we have to do is get better at capturing that material and that requires a change in the way that we see it and in the way that specifications are drawn up to increase focus on not only whole-life costs but also end of product life and a circular
value chain.”
In the UK, Deceuninck has installed 2,200 solar panels onto the roof of its Calne manufacturing facility, generating a total of 895,762 kWh of clean energy.
The renewable energy source not only reduces Deceuninck’s reliance upon fossil fuels for its operations, but also significantly reduces CO2 emissions by 498,507kg a year.
Research by Deceuninck shows that while fabricators and installers want to lower their carbon footprint, many struggled to know where to start and were put off by the complexity involved in the process.
As a result of Deceuninck’s new renewable energy usage, fabricators can now increase their own sustainability simply by purchasing Deceuninck products and benefitting from the work done upstream in the supply chain.
“The talk among many construction industry professionals – including structural engineers, architects, consultants, and specifiers – is the proposed implementation of Approved Document Z,” John says. “We’ve long understood that sustainability is helping to drive sales in the private sector, but products’ embodied carbon may soon be monitored and restricted.
“Fortunately, Deceuninck has already travelled a long way down this path, and we are already sharing our knowledge with our supply chain.”
For more information about Deceuninck’s product and service offer please call 01249 816 969, email deceuninck.ltd@deceuninck.com or visit www.deceuninck.co.uk
Images © Deceuninck
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