Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 25
First report - Building to net zero: costing carbon in construction
Published 26 May 2022
Paragraph 155
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)
The Government must invest now in further research and safety testing on the use of structural timber. The outcome of such research must inform a review of all relevant building regulations so as to render them properly applicable to modern timber materials and to ensure that fire safety regulations can take account of how modern timber materials behave in fire. The Government’s response to the consultation on proposed amendments to the combustible materials ban must now include clarification of the Government’s position of structural timber in the ban on combustible materials. The Government’s response to the consultation should be issued at the latest before the House rises for the 2022 summer recess.
From: Environmental Audit Committee, First report - Building to net zero: costing carbon in construction (HC 103), paragraph 155, 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.