In May 2022, a cross-industry group comprising leading organisations BBP, BRE, the Carbon Trust, CIBSE, IStructE, LETI, RIBA, RICS, and UKGBC, joined together to develop a Standard to define the requirements for buildings in the UK to be Net Zero Carbon (NZC).

The UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, or “The Standard”, has been created to enable the built environment industry to robustly determine whether our built assets are Net Zero Carbon, and in line with the UK’s climate targets.
On 24th September 2024, this radical collaboration culminated in the publication of the Pilot Version of the Standard, thanks to the work of many hundreds of individuals and organisations from across the entire sector.

Our objective has been to provide clear and consistent, science-based metrics which buildings and assets must achieve in order to call themselves NZC – and the Standard includes limits on upfront carbon, operational energy usage and refrigerant leakage, as well as rules about fossil fuel usage (none, but with exceptions for emergency power), and district heating and cooling networks. It also sets targets for on-site renewable generation, and reporting requirements for life-cycle embodied carbon, operational water usage, electricity demand and delivered heating/cooling. Off-setting is not permitted to stay below the limits specified, but it is voluntary for those who wish to set off their residual emissions.
These targets and benchmarks have been arrived at by balancing a “top down” analysis, which seeks to distribute the UK’s share of the carbon and energy budget between the 13 different sectors and typologies covered by the Standard, with a “bottom up” review of actual performance being achieved in each of those sectors, based on evidence provided by the whole industry.

The Pilot Version provides the technical specification of the Standard, which is ready to be adopted for projects and into project briefs immediately. The Pilot Version does not include details on how to verify that a project conforms to the Standard.

We are currently preparing a tender to select Verification Administrators for the Standard, who will be involved in preparing the relevant sections not yet fully developed.

In tandem with this we will soon be launching a Pilot Testing programme to gather further industry feedback on the process of adopting the Standard on projects. We hope to be able to work alongside building project owners, developers or occupiers who are in the process of design, construction, at or around Practical Completion or in operation – in each of the sectors for which the Standard has been written, including both new and existing buildings.

Our intention is to learn from the experience of applying the Standard to real projects, to feed into the full Version 1 which will be published late next year, alongside the Verification regime that we will have developed by then. Anyone who wants to register their interest in putting forward their building for Pilot Testing can do so on our website at Pilot Testing | UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (nzcbuildings.co.uk).

While the Pilot Version of the Standard covers whole buildings, it became clear during our extensive consultation and engagement process that for some sectors there will be value in the ability for the Standard to differentiate between areas or between responsibilities (e.g. for base build or for tenanted offices to assess their performance separately), and we are therefore also working up a way to apply the Standard’s methodology following a delineated approach. We are engaging with experts from the relevant sectors to develop this approach, which will also be ready for inclusion in Version 1 of the Standard.

And finally, in order to ensure that those in the industry who are already benchmarking and assessing their buildings against other leading schemes and frameworks which are driving towards the same goals as the Standard, we have developed Principles of Equivalence, against which we can measure overlaps and consistencies between the key leading methodologies.

A scheme’s equivalence with the Standard might only apply for a specific requirement (e.g. operational energy), for a particular sector or sub sector, or building classification (e.g. new build). We will be engaging with schemes and standards such as NABERS UK, over the coming months to determine whether equivalence can be achieved and we look forward to working with other schemes/standards on this.

The Pilot Version of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard is the result of an enormous amount of work and an unprecedented drive by the entire industry to work together to deliver a definition of Net Zero Carbon which is aligned with our nation’s targets and obligations.

Not only do we look forward to continuing that collaboration over the coming months in order to finalise the full Version 1 of the Standard, but we will also be working closely with Government at national and local level to demonstrate that our industry is taking its environmental obligations seriously and addressing them responsibly, and to see how the Standard can be incorporated into national objectives for growth and decarbonisation.

Everyone involved in the development of the Standard would like to extend our heartful thanks to all of those who have supported and contributed so far.