To demolish or not to demolish?
Reducing embodied carbon is imperative to hitting low carbon goals.
Refurbishment and retrofit is an obvious way to do this. Deep refurbishment and retaining the sub-structure and structure of buildings could save up to 400kg of CO2e per square metre compared to new builds.
But what works for one development may not work for another. Refurbishment and retrofit isn’t always possible. It depends on the structure you’re dealing with, how well it meets market and user needs, and whether the asset can be adapted for future use.
Taking a retrofit-first approach is great when it works, but we also need to face reality. In many cases, buildings can’t be saved and repurposed without making major structural changes. In situations such as these, demolition is the best option and any new development taking a building’s place should be created with a longer-term vision in mind.
We need to consider the challenge of securing warranties for certain aspects of refurbishment, as this can create a real barrier. It’s not always possible, for example, to underwrite the risk of using existing drylining in a structure. If some of these obstacles can be removed in future, then that could make more retrofit projects viable.
Yes
No
Some assets are more challenging than others and have structures that are less adaptable to modern use. In these cases, and when we have to new build, we must set ourselves strong embodied carbon targets and look to offset the rest of the carbon wherever possible. This means we can deliver net-zero buildings by offsetting carbon through nature-based solutions, or reinvesting back into the portfolio to decarbonise the buildings we already have.
There is a real preference for refurbishment-first. We should take the bones of an asset and see what we can do with it – whether that’s decladding, extending, or infilling.
