Reducing the amount of carbon – both embodied and operational - in our buildings is the single-most critical issue facing the built environment. It’s greatly encouraging that in recent years this has become a mainstream issue, not just for the construction sector, but for society as a whole. For sustainable engineers and those involved in the design of buildings, we have been grappling with this problem for some time. However, the answer at a basic level has never changed: less is more.

When building new homes, the production, transport, and construction of materials emits carbon. For building services specifically, the accounting of embodied carbon is generally poor, as systems and equipment are made up of components and composite materials that can’t be simply measured by weight or volume. However, it still holds that using fewer materials in a development will result in an inherently lower carbon footprint.

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