Solutions · Sustainability
Sustainability & Green Building
Auditing what a design costs the ground it stands on, then ranking the changes worth making by what each one saves against what it costs.
3
capabilities
5
stage engagement
4
deliverables
SustainabilitySustainability 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.
Capability
What 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.
Specification
Recycled and bio-based material selection, with supplier sourcing that holds up at procurement rather than only on paper.
Certification support
Documentation through LEED and local green building review, prepared to survive the reviewer.
Audience
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
Process
How the work moves
Audit
Rank
Specify
Source
Document
Deliverables
What you actually receive
Named artefacts rather than adjectives: the things that exist at the end, and can be checked against this list.
An embodied carbon assessment
The existing design quantified by material and assembly, with the method and boundaries stated.
A ranked options list
Each change costed against what it saves, ordered so the decision is obvious.
A specification package
Named materials and named suppliers, checked for real availability and lead time.
Certification documentation
The evidence pack assembled for LEED or local green building review.
Engagement
The practical detail
- Assessment stage
- 3 to 5 weeks
- Reporting standard
- RICS, EN 15978
- Certification support
- LEED and local schemes
- Deliverable format
- Report, model, evidence pack
- Best engaged
- At concept or early DD
- Engagement start
- Assessment request
Questions
Asked before commissioning
The questions that come up on nearly every enquiry, answered here so the first call can start further along.
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.