BCIS hails AECOM report for calls to improve carbon reporting

A new report commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has been praised by BCIS for its strong recommendations to improve embodied carbon reporting in the built environment.

Delivered by engineering consultant AECOM, the report outlines long-standing barriers to measuring and assessing embodied carbon in new buildings and suggests actions to simplify and standardise these processes.

Reacting to the report’s findings, BCIS’s executive director, James Fiske, said: ‘This report is the silver lining we’ve been waiting for. It backs up the technical and economic viability of measuring and reducing embodied carbon in the built environment on a wider scale – something myself, my BCIS colleagues and industry peers have been advocating for many years. It doesn’t have to cost the earth for us to do this.

‘Acknowledgement in the report of the need for using a consistent methodology, accessible software, quality data, and training to ensure the availability of competent carbon assessors is particularly welcome.

‘Overcoming some of these challenges is exactly what we set out to do through funding and developing the pan-industry initiative, the Built Environment Carbon Database (BECD). Linking its carbon data to cost information in BCIS enables the simultaneous measurement and reporting of cost and carbon.

‘Disappointingly, upskilling quantity surveyors to undertake carbon assessments was not included in the report. However, we continue to believe this is the most efficient way to deliver carbon assessments. Quantity surveyors are already measurement experts and undertake similar tasks for estimating and cost control purposes.

‘Regardless, this report is a stepping stone in our fight to decarbonise the built environment, and a signal for government action.’

Recommendations in the report include measures to standardise the scope and collection of carbon data as well as how carbon assessments are undertaken.

The importance of a national carbon dataset, based on existing carbon data, was also highlighted.

Other key recommendations include: 

• Reducing embodied carbon emissions in six priority sectors 
• Ensuring carbon reporting covers three ‘scope’ elements 
• Creating a third-party verification process for carbon tools  
• Upskilling the value chain to improve carbon reduction efforts  
• Introducing industry training on whole life carbon assessments 
• Adopting a tiered data tracking approach to carbon assessment datasets to support the UK’s decarbonisation goals 

Fiske added: ‘Much of what AECOM has called for already exists in some form. Crucially, the report provides much-needed evidence that shows we must continue building on progress made. The focus for the government must now be on what it can do to support adoption and education to make embodied carbon measuring, reporting and reduction standard practice.’

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