Sustainability06 / 08

Sustainability & Green Building

Assessment, specification and certification support

3: capabilities
5: stages
4: deliverables

Overview

Sustainability work fails when it arrives as a wish list. A report recommending twenty improvements with no costs attached gets read once and filed, because nobody can act on it without redoing the analysis themselves.

The approach here is to audit the design that actually exists, quantify the material flows and embodied carbon in it, and then rank the possible changes by what each one saves against what each one costs. That ranking is the deliverable. It turns an environmental question into a procurement decision someone is able to sign off.

Specification follows the same rule. A recycled or bio-based material is only a recommendation if it can be sourced at the volume and lead time the project needs, from a supplier who will still exist at procurement. Anything that cannot survive that test is noted as unavailable rather than presented as an option.

What it does

Three things this division does

Assessment

Material flows and embodied carbon audited on the existing design, with the changes ranked by what they save against what they cost.

Who it is for

Who commissions this

Design teams targeting a certification rating

Developers with embodied-carbon reporting obligations

Institutions with procurement sustainability requirements

Manufacturers auditing their own material flows

How work moves

From brief to delivery,
in five stages

01
Audit
Where it starts
02
Rank
Stage 2
03
Specify
Stage 3
04
Source
Stage 4
05
Document
Where it ends

What you receive

At the end of the job

An embodied carbon assessmentThe existing design quantified by material and assembly, with the method and boundaries stated.
A ranked options listEach change costed against what it saves, ordered so the decision is obvious.
A specification packageNamed materials and named suppliers, checked for real availability and lead time.
Certification documentationThe evidence pack assembled for LEED or local green building review.

The practical detail

In numbers

3 to 5 weeks: Assessment stage
RICS, EN 15978: Reporting standard
LEED and local schemes: Certification support
Report, model, evidence pack: Deliverable format
At concept or early DD: Best engaged
Assessment request: Engagement start

Questions

Asked before commissioning

Answered here, so the first call can start further along.

Still have a question?Ask the team that runs the machines.

Ask us Book a call

At concept, or early in design development. Embodied carbon is largely fixed by structural system and material choice, and both are effectively locked by the end of DD. An assessment run at tender stage can describe the problem accurately and change almost nothing about it.

No, and anyone who does is overselling. Ratings are awarded by the assessing body against evidence. What is offered is the documentation prepared to survive that review, and an honest read early on of which rating is realistically reachable.

Not always. Recycled content that has to be freighted across a continent can carry more embodied carbon than a local virgin alternative. That is precisely why the options get ranked with numbers rather than assumed.

Yes, and retrofit is often where the largest savings are, because the structure is already built and its carbon already spent. Reusing it is usually the single biggest lever available.

Also from the workshop