Leading Indicators is a column written by RICS chief economist, Simon Rubinsohn. This month, could taking a balance sheet approach to fiscal policy help the UK government realise its housebuilding ambitions?
Another record-breaking UK summer has turned climate resilience into a design baseline. Heat- and drought-ready specifications are now essential for sustainable building design, as hosepipe bans and failing assets expose systemic risk. Rapid permafrost degradation, with active layers thickening by more than 36 cm a year in mountain regions, signals foundation and infrastructure vulnerabilities across high latitudes. Design teams are prioritising whole life carbon, lifecycle assessment, life cycle thinking in construction and life cycle cost to balance resilience with net zero whole life carbon goals, delivering energy-efficient buildings, robust green infrastructure and low carbon design.
Regulation is tightening. The UK’s golden thread obligations now cover every trade on higher‑risk projects, demanding verifiable, location‑specific records of installations. Compliance advantages firms that can evidence sustainable material specification, environmental product declarations (EPDs), green building products and embodied carbon in materials, cutting the carbon footprint of construction. Clients are aligning with BREEAM and breeam v7, using whole life carbon assessment to prove carbon footprint reduction and the environmental impact of construction while decarbonising the built environment toward carbon neutral construction and net zero carbon targets. This embeds environmental sustainability in construction and raises expectations for sustainable building practices and sustainable design.
Delivery models are shifting from demolition to reuse. The 75 London Wall retrofit foregrounds circular economy in construction, end-of-life reuse in construction and circular construction strategies that minimise embodied carbon and whole life carbon while improving building lifecycle performance. In the Benelux, an organised push for modular construction signals industrialised, lower‑waste methods, greater resource efficiency in construction and broader uptake of low embodied carbon materials, low carbon construction materials, renewable building materials and green building materials to achieve low carbon building outcomes. Temporary power is decarbonising as major events switch to renewable, green energy, reinforcing eco-design for buildings, eco‑friendly construction and green construction across sites targeting net zero carbon buildings, sustainable construction, sustainable architecture, sustainable urban development and the wider circular economy. Sustainability is now specification, not slogan.
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