Opinion piece by The Edge Team

The built and natural environment think tank, the Edge, has taken up the challenge of curating the Futurebuild Arena conference programme again in 2024. Edge members have been involved with Futurebuild since its earliest ‘Ecobuild’ days and have seen efforts to tackle zero carbon and the climate and ecological emergencies both progress and, as at present, regress. This ebb and flow towards meeting internationally and nationally agreed goals was demonstrated in the timeline Futurebuild and the Edge published leading up to COP26 More than two years and two climate change COPs (plus another on biodiversity) later, we can see that the results are still mixed.

Progress has been made with:

• 100% net zero carbon targets are enshrined in the UK Climate Change Act (2008 and 2019)
• 10% Biodiversity Net Gain is mandatory for all planning submissions

which is due to come into force in February 2024.

• Two taskforces, TCFD, the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure and TNFD, the Taskforce  on Nature – related Financial Disclosure (TNFD), are driving change through financial markets
• The great majority of built and natural industry companies are aware of the challenges they face and are taking action to deliver change
• Organisations such as Construction Declares, LETI, the UK Green Building Council and many others are providing the guidance and standards to help the industry to transition to net zero regardless of Government
• The newly-formed National Retrofit Hub (2023) provides a platform to drive domestic and non-domestic retrofit at scale.

but …

In its June 2023 Report to Parliament, the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) warned that the UK will fail to achieve its own net zero targets unless the rate of emission reduction significantly increases and advised that with respect to buildings progress has stalled and ‘to reach net zero, the Government urgently needs to coordinate a shift in how the UK’s 28million homes and two million non-residential building use energy.’

Instead, Government has backtracked by:

• Delaying the ban on installation of oil and LPG boilers to 2035 (including new coal heating for off-gas-grid homes)
• Allowing an exemption to fossil fuel boiler replacement in 2035 for

households suffering from fuel poverty (likely to represent a fifth of all homes)

• Scrapping policies that require landlords to improve the energy efficiency of their properties…
• Dismissing policy proposals that would encourage behavioural change such as requiring people to share cars, eat less meat and dairy, fly less, or increase doorstep recycling.

There will be a new Government elected in 2024, which will need to take the advice of the CCC, along with that of the National Infrastructure Commission and a broad consensus of experts seriously. The Conference programme at Futurebuild 2024 will be looking at the much-delayed change that needs to happen and how it can be delivered.

How to make positive changes in the construction industry

Paul Morrell, the government’s first Chief Construction Advisor, in his 2024 Sir James Wates lecture titled ‘How much longer? Why is change so difficult (and yet so necessary) in construction?’ reminded us that the ‘construction industry’ is many industries operating at different scales; that we must not confuse ‘standards’ with ‘red tape’ and that there is a serious lack of resource to enforce standards, which must themselves be comprehensible. He also highlighted the many reports that have been written over the years, which have not brought about the change anticipated and, indeed, that the industry is still waiting for the government’s response to his own Independent Review of the Construction Product Testing Regime – a vital report because, as Paul said, “If you haven’t done any new thinking after Grenfell, there is something wrong with you.”

The industry needs change and this is why we have focused the conference topics on

• The pathways to change (5th March)
• The levers for change (6th March)
• Sharing our visions for change (7th March)

But – there is always a ‘but’ – why should the industry change? How can it do so? One vital element which many of us are now engaged is continuing education. Education to better understand the climate and ecological emergency that we are in so that all citizens are more likely to support the actions that are required; education to improve our professional competence so that we not only see why we must do things differently but are competent to deliver it. The students want it, the employers need it. It is time to deliver on climate literacy and what it means for the industry going forward.

The conference programme explores some of the big, interrelated issues that we all need to engage with; including housing, retrofit at scale, delivering buildings that really are net zero carbon, mending the planning system, valuing water as a resource, having the education that we need, restoring nature, how the industry should handle AI and how do young professionals envision their futures.

Political change

This is most likely to be an election year and so at twelve noon each day we focus on the political change that is needed. But whatever international and national governments propose and implement, as an industry, we already know what we have to do to respond to the climate and ecological emergencies in which we now find ourselves and so it is time for us to all step forward and deliver the change that is needed – time for us to lead the way. So, for this conference programme we are determined to focus on the positive, on what we can do and how we can do it.

We have envisaged the programme as a whole, although we accept that not everyone can attend every session on every day – so pick the day and theme that most reflects your concerns,  audience engagement in these sessions is an important part of the value of the sessions themselves. And the young have the last word on the last day!

Come and explore each day in turn and hear from some of the impressive line-up of speakers as to why each topic is important to them and why it is vital to join the discussion.

Here an interview Martin Hurn and Robin Nicholson on the aims of the conference programme and why the Edge is well placed to curate it