We recently became members of the London Property Alliance and attended our first Westminster Property Association (WPA) event with them last week. The new draft Westminster Retrofit First Policy was released in November and was the subject of an intriguing breakfast seminar hosted by Landsec.
Westminster is the most stringent London Borough with regards to embodied carbon. They have a target of 550-650kg CO2e/m2 embodied carbon for all commercial developments. This is an incredibly ambitious goal, but much more achievable than the initial plans. And how can we tackle the climate crisis? By being ambitious, creative, and clever.
To achieve this embodied carbon target, greater adoption of circular economy principles will be required to gain planning approval. As such, Helena Morris from Stanhope PLC reiterated a point we’ve made before – “you need to take the structural engineer to the planning meeting, not just your Architect”. Appointing engineers early in the process will be crucial to the projects’ success. We can assess existing structures to verify they are structurally sound. We can contribute to circular economy statements by identifying how much of the existing structural members can be reused – either directly on the new development or sold to a stockist for reuse elsewhere.
The slides below are from the presentation and give an overview of Westminster’s Retrofit First process, and the development hierarchy for retrofit and new build options.
SD Engineers are well versed at undertaking carbon counting exercises on projects and detailing efficient structures to lower the embodied carbon of builds. It’s something we’re incredibly passionate about, and something we’ve recently won a Structural Award for.
Do get in touch with us if your project has similar requirements – we’d love to hear from you.
