Low Carbon Routemap for the Built Environment
The Green Construction Board has developed the Low Carbon Routemap for the Built Environment to serve as a visual tool enabling stakeholders to understand the policies, actions and key decision points required to achieve the UK Government target of 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the built environment vs 1990 levels by 2050. The Routemap also sets out actions, together with key performance indicators that can be used to deliver and measure progress in meeting the 2050 target.
The Routemap covers both infrastructure and buildings sectors, and addresses segments of operational and capital (embodied) carbon emissions. The emissions covered by the Routemap are as follows:
- Operational carbon in buildings: emissions from regulated energy use (excluding plug loads) for all domestic and non-domestic building sectors except industrial.
- Operational carbon in infrastructure: emissions from outdoor lighting, waste from construction, demolition and excavation, and water/wastewater. The use of transport infrastructure (by cars for example) is excluded. Some components of infrastructure that include buildings (such as railway stations) are included in the analysis, but appear under buildings.
- Capital carbon: covers emissions arising from the production and manufacture of materials (in the UK and abroad), transport of materials and people, all industry design and consultancy activities, and the emissions from on-site activities for the construction and demolition of buildings and infrastructure.
The Routemap includes three key components which are available for download:
A visual Routemap with policies, actions and targets needed to achieve an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, available as a pdf
A model in which users can see the effect of different scenarios and insert their own inputs and assumptions, available as an excel workbook
Launch the GCB Low Carbon Routemap Model tool
A report which summarises the approach, methodology, scenarios, challenges and opportunities, available as a pdf
Launch the GCB Low Carbon Routemap Report
We have also produced an infographic that displays the Routemap's findings visually
Launch the Routemap infographic
