Minimising embodied carbon: A question of politics, not percentages

Moncaster, Alice

Abstract

Embodied carbon (EC) has long been a thorny issue, for many years excluded from policy and regulation. Definitions of ‘zero carbon’ have been framed to include only operational impacts, encouraging improvements in energy efficiency but continuing to promote construction. With the embodied impacts of new buildings responsible for 9 to 10% of global carbon emissions each year, this chapter considers the reasons why it has taken so long for this issue to start to be regulated. Through a case study of the introduction of zero carbon in the UK, it reveals policy development as a contest over both what is important and who controls the narrative. It also shows how policy works through and sometimes against industry experts, and how percentages can be used to support arguments while obscuring their impact.
Many other chapters in this book will provide evidence of the extent of embodied impacts, and of the imperative to reduce them. This chapter instead considers the political history of what has happened and why, in order to understand what is needed to accelerate real transition. Rather than the politically attractive (and espoused) target of ‘net zero’ new buildings, the chapter proposes the radical reduction of construction, including that of both buildings and the infrastructure that supports them. This will need radical, not incremental, change, and must be measured in absolute reductions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, not percentages. It is no longer enough for professionals and academics to understand how to calculate embodied impacts; we must also understand the role that politics has had, and continues to have, in order to be able to steer a new course.

• Online Publication Date: Dec 22, 2023
• Publication Date: Dec 22, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jan 10, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 23, 2025
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Pages: 7-19
• Book Title: The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Carbon in the Built Environment
• Chapter Number: 2
• ISBN: 9781032234861
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003277927
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11599500
• Additional Information: We were still discussing edits to chapters in November with the publisher. I'm not sure when the acceptance date for the chapters are therefore.