Embodied Carbon in Parliament

Long awaited bill to regulate embodied carbon is going to the parliament for a second read.

As a manufacturer of low carbon building materials, we at Cresco understand the critical role that the construction industry plays in reducing carbon emissions. The Carbon Emissions (Buildings) Bill is an important piece of legislation that could significantly impact the industry's efforts towards achieving net zero carbon emissions. We are proud to show our support for the bill.

We recognize that achieving net-zero carbon emissions requires regulating embodied carbon emissions. Therefore, we fully support the requests that ACAN is advocating for. Which are,

1/The Building Regulations

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• The Building Regulations to be expanded to include requirements to assess, report & reduce embodied carbon, within a new part; “Part Z: Embodied Carbon Emissions”

• Compliance to be achieved through a “Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment” following the British Standard BS EN 15978

• Limits placed on embodied carbon emissions set by building type

• Regulation 7 to be revised to introduce carbon limits on certain materials

2/Planning Policy

• Clauses to be introduced to the National Planning Policy Framework with requirements for Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Assessments to be submitted at three stages for all new buildings; as part of pre-application enquiries, full planning submissions, and at practical completion

• New London Plan Policy SI2 to be adopted by local authorities around the UK As an immediate measure

3/Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment Support

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• Create a freely accessible UK Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) database, or adopt an existing freely accessible database, to ensure consistent and reliable assessments

• Require Environmental Product Declarations to be submitted to the database from construction material suppliers above a certain size, with trade bodies assisting smaller organisations.

• Establish a freely accessible database for anonymised Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment data of new buildings, to ensure lessons are widely learnt

You can read ACAN’s report at or the more recent wider report by The Edge.