Category Archives: Buildings

Net Zero Carbon Buildings Framework Released

Green Construction

The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has recently released a framework for net zero carbon buildings. This is a positive step forward for improving the environmental impacts of construction. The framework covers both embodied carbon and operational carbon. We have put together a summary article on net zero carbon buildings. What is net zero, how […]

Whole Life Carbon as a Vehicle for Innovation

This is Part II of the article, part I revealed how the HM Treasury stated that…  “Reducing carbon reduces costs” – HM Treasury, 2013 The Infrastructure Carbon Review (2013) made this bold statement. It appears word for word in the report. However, such a bold statement should not be taken out of context and it […]

The Business Value of Carbon Footprints: Reducing Carbon Reduces Costs

What is the value of carbon footprinting? Why should I carbon footprint our business, products, activities or constructions? Why should I do an embodied carbon assessment? These are the questions we face almost daily. The reply is now: “Reducing carbon reduces costs” A bold claim indeed. It’s a claim that would normally be met with […]

Zero Carbon Homes Abandoned by UK Government

The UK government recently announced that zero carbon homes 2016 and zero carbon buildings 2019 (non-domestic) will be abandoned. The zero carbon homes policy was designed so that all new buildings would generate as much energy from on-site renewables (PV, wind,…etc) as they consume to heat and power the building. It was a flagship environmental […]

The Impact of Embodied Carbon in Real Estate – Spring Mews Case Study

Embodied carbon is the carbon footprint of producing materials. It is steadily gaining attention from both industry and parts of government, where it is now recognised that embodied carbon emissions make up a large fraction of the emissions from the construction sector. In fact, it’s often 20-40% of the whole life (embodied + operational) carbon […]

Winner of A Green Apple Built Environment Award

Green Apple Award

We are delighted to announce Circular Ecology’s role in winning a Green Apple award for the Built Environment. Circular Ecology’s client New Sustainable Building Model Ltd (NSBM) entered the Green Apple Awards and competed against more than 200 other nominations in the Built Environment & Architectural Heritage category for 2015. NSBM are based in Cambridgeshire […]

The Environmental Sustainability of Existing Buildings: Refurbish or Replace?

There comes a time in the life of every building where extensive refurbishment is required. For many a building this seems to bring with it thoughts of starting again – essentially to demolish and ‘rebuild’. The normal practice in modern times seems to be the preference to demolish and replace. Whereas conservationists naturally prefer to […]

The Carbon Footprint of Thatch

Environmental Impact Thatch

On Saturday 21 March Dr Stephen Allen of Circular Ecology is giving a talk on the embodied carbon of building materials to the annual conference of the National Society of Master Thatchers. Steve will give an overview of carbon footprinting and what it can be used for, and illustrate this through the results of an […]

Is embodied carbon getting the attention it deserves?

Green Construction

Embodied carbon has slowly been gaining attention, but it still lacks the recognition that it arguably deserves. It has been a poor understudy to operational carbon emissions, which traditionally grabs the headlines. But could this be about to change? Perhaps. April 7th to 11th is UK Green Building Council (UK GBC) ‘Embodied Carbon Week’, where […]

The ICE embodied energy and embodied carbon database is now hosted for download by Circular Ecology

The Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE) database is once more available for download. The ICE database has become an important resource in the world of carbon footprinting, with over 15,000 users from all around the world. It is used far and wide and appears in countless reports, carbon calculators, lectures, journals, books and more. […]