Conducting a forensic whole life carbon assessment to support a developer’s ambition to deliver net zero carbon developments

Vox - Net Zero Benchmarking Study

Glenbrook is set on helping to reduce human impact on the environment with their developments. For their £70 million build-to-rent scheme, Vox, they transformed a disused industrial site in Castlefield, Manchester, into a highly-sustainable development. To take sustainability for Vox and future developments to the next level, Glenbrook reached out to our team to conduct a net zero benchmarking study.

We began by reviewing their existing, already high-performing design principles and adopted a forensic approach to analyse the building’s whole life embodied carbon footprint. Our team examined the extraction, assembly, maintenance, replacement, and disposal of the materials and systems that make-up Glenbrook’s archetypal building design. We then used the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI) benchmark to establish opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint on future schemes. We also identified areas to reduce embodied carbon, such as streamlining use of materials and volume of aggregates during the phasing of construction. Finally, we outlined energy-related options including increased use of renewables, a greater focus on occupancy behaviour to eliminate the performance gap, and offsetting emissions off site.

While Vox had already achieved a 37 percent betterment of industry-standard carbon reductions, our study revealed that a further 24 percent reduction in whole-life emissions could still be viably achieved. This could be accomplished by targeting areas for improvement, predominantly through air source heat pumps, putting a greater focus on occupancy behaviour, and offsetting emissions off site.

Glenbrook will use the guide developed from the study as a blueprint for more efficient building design going forward. With another six developments in the pipeline, this will help Glenbrook steer their ongoing holistic approach to achieving net zero emissions.