The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) will be publishing a new edition of its Whole Life Carbon Assessment (WLCA) guidance. They are now seeking feedback on the current draft.
What will the new WLCA guidance achieve?
Created by RICS in consultation with internationally recognised construction-industry bodies, they anticipate the guidance will:
- give visibility to the carbon cost of different design choices
- help professionals manage carbon budgets, reduce lifetime emissions and build a net-zero future for construction
- promote long-term thinking by encouraging reuse, recycling, and redevelopment
- establish a global benchmark for consistent carbon measurement at all project stages
- become the world-leading standard for carbon measurement in the built environment.
“Accurate and consistent measurement, reporting and recording of data relating to carbon emissions throughout the whole built environment life-cycle is a vital enabler for industry, regulators and public policy makers globally,” the RICS explains, in order that they can “understand carbon impacts and inform decision-making on the journey to net zero”.
Why should you respond?
The guidance has the potential to be extremely helpful in informing design and materials decisions for clients, designers, engineers and contractors, enabling them to develop the optimum low carbon solution, and allow greater visibility of the benefits of stored biogenic carbon. It should also help suppliers make a better case for the low-carbon, biobased materials that they sell.
It is therefore in the interests of the timber sector to ensure that the information in this guidance is accurate. We encourage all our members to read more about the consultation or watch the explanatory video.
Send us your feedback
Timber Development UK is currently putting its own response together and we are keen to receive input for our members. Please contact the editorial team at editorial@timberdevelopment.uk by Friday 14 April. The consultation will close on 18 April 2023.