Blog: In search of treasure and redemption: Inaugural Lecture at the University of Birmingham by Professor John Dyson

PETP program was instrumental in demonstrating the value of this thinking.

To meet the LETI benchmarks this means every other element in the building needs to perform better to offset the impact of MEP.MEP calculations are still in their infancy compared with the rest of the building, meaning more research and data collection is required to create robust calculations and benchmarks.

MEP has a short lifespan compared with other elements and as such it is even more important to consider the whole life impact of services, alongside the operational carbon impact..At two thirds of the whole life carbon, embodied carbon is critically important within an office building.Decisions made during early design stages should prioritise embodied carbon alongside design, function, and aesthetics..

The brainstorming sessions on how to move from the BaU scheme to a platform-led scheme (back in 2019) included embodied carbon as one of the technical indicators, giving as much weight to carbon as other metrics such as productivity, safety, and cost..The data collected on this project is valuable, not because it shows how well the buildings perform against benchmarks, but because the data can influence future projects right now.

If every project was able to reduce embodied carbon by nearly 40% it would revolutionise the industry..

The Forge stands as a beacon of what is possible when we rethink design and construction.The UK has huge construction requirements in multiple sectors – the planning process should be an enabler, not a barrier..

Considering how much impact planning has on our lives, it is not as present or discoverable as many other aspects of contemporary living.The laminated notices on lamp posts which inform the public of local planning applications can easily be missed or ignored, and are often hard to understand.

We do not have the levels of informed, accessible, public engagement with planning that would benefit the process and the built environment.Digitisation would open up new ways to engage the wider public at all stages of the planning process..