Mind the Gap: Performance Gaps Are Real and We Can Do Something About It

Fresh from our recent round of discovery conversations at Footprint+, The UK’s Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum (UKREIIF) and Digital Construction Week, it’s clear that there’s still a long way to go to understand Whole Life Carbon data; how it changes through design, construction, procurement and in use stages, how the UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard (UKNZCBS) is being brought into conversations and projects, and what the future of this looks like.

We’ve seen and heard some encouraging conversations about how Whole Life Carbon data is being considered more often throughout project stages, not just at concept and detailed design. Developers and contractors are working together with a clearer understanding of what they are trying to achieve, particularly with a view to understanding the impact of construction, equipment and procurement on Whole Life Carbon.

What is particularly clear is that this approach is still very much in its infancy and only applied to certain projects, most of which are of a certain size and budget that can sustain this level of scrutiny. What’s also clear is the way this process is being managed. It’s great to see Whole Life Carbon data being assessed more regularly throughout key stages, but it is still very much a manual process. Information is passed between consultants, clients, contractors and subcontractors/suppliers manually, and there can be days or weeks between updated assessments and output reports.

A gripe we heard often was that, when information changes or project decisions are made, it takes a long time for WLCA information to be updated, assessed and reported — often with little understanding of the implications those decisions can have until the final WLCA report has been issued and reviewed.

Something we found interesting is how contractors are doing more around carbon emission data collection through the construction and procurement stages. It highlights serious performance gaps between early stage WLCA data and later stages. This isn’t necessarily surprising; as project information becomes more defined and packages are procured and constructed, it’s inevitable that WLCA figures are likely to increase. It’s the level of increase that is so surprising — often up to 200%, according to some conversations.

This elephant in the room is obviously concerning, especially if our industry doesn’t deal with it. It also has the potential to make contractors or consultants appear like the bad guys, merely for collecting the emission data. Though it’s not the case, it could have the effect of either suppressing information to not look bad or not collect it at all.

Something we’ve been looking at building into the features of ViridiPath is a way of highlighting these performance gaps. With project data, we can start to build up a picture of the typical WLCA tracked data to spot trends, where performance gaps generally take place and to what extent. We can use the capabilities of the platform to predict risk factors in early stage assessments. As an industry we need to be in a place where we truly understand how WLCA data changes throughout a project and start to predict it. This is where the introduction of the UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard gets interesting.

We heard some great talks and had interesting conversations about how the pilot version of the standard could be adopted by the industry, how it might pave the way for a standardised, industry-accepted certification for carbon emissions for buildings. Intriguingly, the standard suggests that emission data must be assessed for at least 12 months after minimum occupancy is met to ensure the predicted design and construction WLCA data aligns with as-built/in-use stages.

This is an area we are excited to explore with ViridiPath. The nature of tracking WLCA seamlessly means we can easily digest completion and in-use data, make instantaneous comparisons and align our platform with a standardised certification such as that proposed in the UKNZC building standard.

In summary, it has been a fantastic few weeks understanding more about how developers, contractors and consultants are dealing with WLCA data management, what’s working, what’s not working and what’s on wish lists. Our current focus to progress WLCA tracking capabilities, enabling organisations to understand the impact of construction and procurement stages; predict performance gaps, highlighting risk factors for early stage assessments; align our platform with the UKNZC building standard.

If you’d like to discuss these or any other issues around WLCA and Embodied Carbon data management, get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.