Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 16
First report - Building to net zero: costing carbon in construction
Published 26 May 2022
Paragraph 108
Environmental Audit Committee Sustainability of the built environment All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We recommend that the Government investigate possible ways, beyond public procurement, to incentivise the use of low-carbon cement to ensure that these cement alternatives become the product type of choice by 2030. This should include an assessment of the feasibility of restricting the disposal of a range of waste products, so as to facilitate their use as clinker substitutes, as is the case in the Netherlands.
From: Environmental Audit Committee, First report - Building to net zero: costing carbon in construction (HC 103), paragraph 108, 26 May 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 30 September 2022 (deadline 26 July 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees that whole-life carbon assessments are "likely to have a significant role" in decarbonising construction, but it does not commit to mandating them and says it will consult on its approach to embodied carbon in 2023.
- On a mandatory requirement, it "intends to consult in 2023" and will "consider" what levers, including building regulations, will be needed. It says it is "too soon to commit" to ratcheted carbon targets.
- It agrees a standardised calculation method is required and "will look at whether" endorsing specific standards, methodologies or tools "is appropriate".
- It declines to bring forward the Future Homes Standard to 2023, stating it "will not look to alter the timeframe" and that the 2025 timeline delivers on net zero commitments while ensuring homes are delivered in sufficient numbers.
- On public procurement, it says the Procurement Bill would not be an appropriate place for net zero policy priorities, and that there are "no plans to collect and publish" data on whole-life carbon assessments under the Construction Playbook.