Stephen Callow of MPA Masonry unpacks a report from the Future Homes Hub which challenges assumptions about timber and masonry’s carbon impact and highlights the need for balanced, evidence-led solutions.
The Future Homes Hub (FHH) recently published its report focused on Embodied and Whole-Life-Carbon for new homes. ‘Embodied and Whole Life Carbon of Future Homes Standard Options’ paints a comprehensive picture of the two most common building materials and their relative carbon impact on dwellings, both up-front and operational.
The report is very fair in its reflection of the data studied, with some reassuring and positive news for the industry as a whole. Comparisons on timber vs. masonry options give a broadly similar outcome, with two significant headlines of: “There is no silver bullet when it comes to reducing embodied carbon of new homes” and materials “having broadly similar upfront and whole-life embodied carbon impacts.”
This dispels the long-held perception that timber homes are the low carbon option when looking at fabric choices. This new analysis of the data shows that previous claims of a 20% carbon reduction from building in timber made by the Climate Change Committee can be dispelled. It makes clear that there’s no ‘timber’ bullet for low carbon housing.
Offering greater clarity
As always, the devil is in the details, and the FHH is keen to point out that the data can always be improved upon, and industry will continue to support this. The MPA is committed to publishing a comprehensive set of EPDs for masonry products, further improving the accuracy of their data.
Much of the modelling done by the FHH is pulled directly from their own LCA tool. Launched in 2024, and updated many times over the last 18 months. The tool has had significant industry support since its inception. The ability to look at any dwelling type and model homes within the conventions of the tool gives the industry a head start in understanding the carbon make up of the properties we build.
Also, as the report makes clear, there are ‘low hanging fruit’ that the industry can focus on to bring down the embodied carbon of dwellings. Work continues at pace in both the Future Homes Hub and through market suppliers to reduce the carbon impact of materials.
It’s important to recognise that this isn’t the end of the task. The road to net zero is a long one, and one which all parts of the housebuilding industry will need to focus on for many years to come.
Stepping up the challenge
The masonry industry is making significant efforts to reduce the up-front embodied carbon of its products. With renewed interest in Building Regulations Part Z, up-front carbon is set to become a key metric in the future.
The ‘measure first, regulate later’ mantra from industry peers such as FeildenCleggBradley Studios’ Tim den Dekker (who is, in fact, the co-author of Part Z) is one embraced by the mineral products sector. This is reflected in the sector level EPDs available for other materials within the housing sector, not just masonry products.
The UK concrete industry isn’t just measuring, it is acting, achieving a reduction of its direct and indirect carbon emissions by 53% since 1990. This decarbonisation rate, faster than the UK economy as a whole, shows that concrete is playing a vital role in the UK’s energy transition.
Never standing still, we have a robust roadmap that sets out a credible pathway to delivering beyond net zero concrete and cement by 2050. In the masonry vertical specifically, emissions reductions of nearly 50% have been achieved since the early 2010s.
Real priorities
Commentary on housing can be fixated on volume and carbon footprint, but a recent survey carried out by research agency Opinium, and drawn into a comprehensive report by UK Concrete, ‘Homes 2025: A National Conversation’, showed that the public had other priorities. For example, UK homeowners and renters indicate that fire resilience is a key issue for the public, with 87% saying that having their home constructed from fire-resistant materials is important. While people place a high value on the building materials that make up their homes, only 14% of people received information about the materials their home is made from when they moved in.
Elaine Toogood, senior director at UK Concrete & The Concrete Centre, offers this perspective: “This report underlines the value that people put on the fabric quality and performance of their home to deliver energy efficiency, but also to protect against damp, mould, flooding and fire.”
Prospective buyers want to make informed purchasing decisions, and so educating people about the fire safety and climate resilience of the materials used to construct their home should be a requirement for the next generation of housing.
The UK minerals industry is vital to the UK Government’s growth missions. Without it, the goal of 1.5 million new homes is unachievable. Concrete is an economically significant and major part of the wider UK mineral products industry, which contributes approximately £8bn GVA to the UK economy. The minerals industry directly employs 80,000 people nationally and underpins a further 3.2m jobs.
Stephen Callow is manager of masonry & concrete products at MPA Masonry
To download the full ‘Homes 2025: A National Conversation’ report by UK Concrete, scan the QR code below:
