UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard coalition launches call for evidence

The team developing the UK's Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (the NZCBS) has launched a call for evidence, to help inform and guide the development of the Standard.

Once developed, the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard will provide a single agreed definition and methodology for the industry to determine what constitutes a net zero carbon building.

The NZCBS coalition, a cross-industry group of representatives from built environment organisations, is calling on UK built environment industry practitioners to supply operational energy and embodied carbon performance data for their buildings.

The 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. 

They are also looking for embodied carbon data from both new construction and retrofit projects, enabling the development team to set out benchmarks for embodied carbon emitted in the construction process of different building types across the UK. 

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."

To participate, you can submit data via the Built Environment Carbon Database. The deadline for submitting is 16 December 2022.

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 on [email protected] or [email protected], depending on the type of data in question.