Whatever one thought about last month’s Extinction Rebellion protests across London, they certainly succeeded in heightening public awareness that our environmental crisis has now reached the status of an emergency. With the UN warning that we have just 12 years to limit global warming to 1.5ºC if we are to curb the growing risk of extreme natural disasters, campaigners are demanding that the UK strives for a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2025 (even if most environmental campaigners think 2050 to be more realistic). 

According to the UK Green Building Council, the built environment contributes about 40% of the UK’s total carbon footprint, and investment manager Schroeders has calculated that embodied carbon emissions resulting from construction and demolishing buildings account for between 20% and 60% of a building’s environmental impact – making the need for the construction industry to address its environmental impact urgent.

Pressure on the sector is now mounting not just from the public but also from policy-makers: in 2015 the London mayor targeted the sector and similar industries with the world’s first “ultra-low emissions zone” for non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) – which it is due to tighten in September 2020 to achieve even higher standards. The government’s cleaner air strategy, published in January, seeks to roll out the focus on NRMM across the nation. 

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