Real estate developers planning schemes in London’s Square Mile will be given new guidance on carrying out whole lifecycle carbon appraisals.
The City of London Corporation is preparing a draft planning advice note, Whole Lifecycle Carbon Optioneering, for public consultation.
As part of its Climate Action Strategy, the corporation aims to achieve net zero carbon across all activity in the City by 2040, singling out real estate as the largest contributor to direct emissions. The planning advice note, it said, “will provide further clarity for the development industry and build consensus in support of a City-specific path to net zero whole lifecycle carbon emissions for development in the City of London”.
“A feasible carbon balance needs to be explored in any intervention of the built environment,” the draft note said. “This planning advice note recommends a hierarchy of decision-making that prioritises carbon and the City’s Climate Action Strategy, ensuring that all primary and secondary considerations form part of the design process so informed decisions can be made.”
If approved, the note would set an expectation that developers would assess the whole lifecycle carbon emission impact of a scheme before designs are finalised and have communicated with the corporation about options during the process.
The note also proposes a “dashboard” that will let developers and the corporation share “easily absorbable, visual and quantified information” about planning applications.
Currently, planning applications in the City are required to report embodied and operational carbon emissions. “However,” the draft notice said, “the scope of reporting in applications is determined by several factors relating to the type of application, the size of the building and the scope of the intervention proposed.”
The note said the Greater London Authority methodology for whole lifecycle carbon assessments “is currently the most comprehensive of all the industry methods”. Under that method, a minimum of 95% of the capital cost allocated to each building element category should be included at each stage of the assessment.
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