Beyond sustainability: what we need now is regeneration

For 30 years – my entire career in the construction industry – like many others, I have promoted an environmentally sustainable approach to building. Educating myself, and sometimes influencing clients, to do what’s right for the planet.

While the environmental sustainability agenda has become mainstream in this period, we have also entered an era of climate emergency. So it is easy to feel as though the argument for an environmentally sustainable approach to construction has been lost.

Championing sustainability began with a focus on saving natural resources. This argument, while understood as well-meaning, was too abstract for the vast majority of clients making infrastructure investment decisions.

So we switched focus to reducing energy costs as a way of getting our clients’  attention. Something tangible that could be measured. That argument didn’t really work either because, by and large, energy costs are a small part of most businesses’ overheads.

Carbon is building in our atmosphere and, if unchecked, it will cause a climate emergency with catastrophic effects in this century

So we extended the argument to incorporate a building’s whole lifecycle. Reducing running and maintenance costs would surely be significant reason to choose the slightly more expensive to construct, but more environmentally sustainable building? Clients with a longer-term outlook took some notice but, mostly, capital costs still win the day.

Slowly, we got some improvements in legislation. Soft and voluntary accreditations for sustainable buildings emerged. We have made some progress – but it has just been too slow.

Alongside this, the noise from climate scientists became unavoidable, even geopolitics began to wake up to it. Carbon is building in our atmosphere and, if unchecked, it will cause a climate emergency with catastrophic effects in this century.

And so we embraced carbon as the key to changing policymakers’ – and our clients’ – attitudes to developing the built environment. We talk of net zero, carbon targets and accounting, but the current legislation is weak and the opportunities to avoid meaningful change remain plentiful.

We can no longer simply try to do less harm to the environment to try and avoid catastrophe. We need to start to repair the planet

So, while sustainability has long been a guiding principle, the challenges of rising carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, social inequality and economic fragility continue to mount. In the UK, the built environment accounts for nearly 40% of carbon emissions, while communities face issues such as poor housing, energy insecurity and the lasting consequences of an extractive economic system. Clearly, we need another strategy to start to reverse this situation.

We can no longer simply try to do less harm to the environment to try and avoid catastrophe. We need to start to repair the planet. And that is why I am now embracing a regenerative approach that seeks to actively restore ecosystems, revitalise communities and foster long-term economic resilience.

However, despite its transformative potential, regenerative design remains largely theoretical. To genuinely address the climate crisis and the social and economic challenges we face, regenerative design must move beyond rhetoric and become common practice.

HLM Architects, in partnership with Morgan Sindall, Wood Knowledge Wales, Cundall, The Connectives, AtkinsRéalis, ConstruktCLT ltd, and Saint-Gobain invested in a Regenerative Twin study and published the results last month. The study represents an honest attempt to openly grapple with the current challenges of delivering regenerative design solutions. Work like this is critical to drive change in use of materials and supply chain to address the climate crisis.

Perhaps most importantly, the study shows how we need to think more deeply about how design choices impact on the local economy and community cohesion. With the new Procurement Act 2023 now coming into force, policymakers are moving beyond low-cost tendering approaches and considering factors such as carbon emissions, biodiversity, and social impact. But we need to go further, financing mechanisms must be adapted to reward projects that deliver long-term regenerative benefits, rather than just focusing on immediate cost efficiency at the point of construction.

The focus now needs to be on scaling up circular and nature-based solutions. A significant challenge in this area is the underdeveloped supply chain for regenerative materials and techniques. To address this, substantial investment in manufacturing, logistics and workforce training is necessary to make these approaches scalable and to establish a resilient, circular construction ecosystem.

On 27 February the environment minister Mary Creagh unveiled the government’s Timber in Construction Roadmap 2025, a new initiative to increase domestic timber supply. The plan aims to reduce reliance on imports by enhancing homegrown timber production, creating jobs and driving innovation in the construction sector – a really positive move for the circular economy.

>> Also read: What’s stopping the wider adoption of timber in construction?

We all now need to play our part in driving change. HLM Architects has joined Wood Knowledge Wales’ “regenerative materials first” initiative. This is a cross-sector collective of organisations working together and taking action to use home grown timber and other regenerative and renewable materials. The core purpose of the collective is the identification and removal of barriers that might typically inhibit the use of home grown timber and other regenerative and renewable materials in construction. We will be initiating live pilot projects this year.

The UK government faces a dual challenge: to stimulate economic growth while addressing the climate emergency and regional inequality. Regenerative design offers a compelling solution, aligning environmental restoration with economic opportunity. By investing in regenerative approaches, we can simultaneously create skilled jobs, foster regional growth, strengthen domestic supply chains, and enhance infrastructure resilience.

The arguments for environmental sustainability remain. Taking a regenerative approach might just enable us to win that argument once and for good.