Projected embodied carbon emissions from England's buildings by location, type and regulatory level

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Gillott, Charles and Graham, Miriam and Saxton, Georgie and Giesekam, Jannik and Densley Tingley, Danielle (2025) Projected embodied carbon emissions from England's buildings by location, type and regulatory level. BuildZero . University of Sheffield. (https://doi.org/10.15131/shef.data.29636411.v1)

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Abstract

This document analyses the impact of different levels and extents of regulatory limits on projected embodied carbon emissions in English buildings. Without regulation, delivery of housing targets and sustained non-residential construction is estimated to result in annual embodied carbon emissions of 30-40 MtCO2e - equivalent to 10% of the UK's carbon budget. These emissions are diffusely, yet, unequally distributed across local authorities (LAs), with significant variation in the building typologies from which they result. Implementation of draft local regulatory limits (set by 8 LAs) would reduce national emissions by only ~1%. In contrast, national adoption of comparable regulatory limits (500 and 600 kgCO2e/m2 for residential and non-residential buildings respectively) could reduce projected emissions by up to 31%. This evidence supports an urgent transition from fragmented local policymaking towards comprehensive national embodied carbon regulation.

ORCID iDs

Gillott, Charles, Graham, Miriam, Saxton, Georgie, Giesekam, Jannik ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2915-1323 and Densley Tingley, Danielle;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)