Temporary vs. Permanent Storage Containers: Which Option is Best for You? Quick Answer The right choice depends on duration and access needs. For projects under three months, like moves or renovations, temporary storage containers deliver flexible, on-demand space without a […]
The post Temporary vs Permanent Storage Containers Compared appeared first on Green Building Canada.
For ten years, Green Builder Media’s annual Sustainability Symposium has explored the frontiers of economic, technological, housing and climate innovation. This year, for our tenth anniversary, we did something a little more uncomfortable. We called it Systems Reckoning—not transition, not transformation, but reckoning. A hard word. One that means the bill has arrived, and it’s time for honest accounting.
What Can and Can’t Be Saved after A House Fire: The Honest Truth Once you are permitted back in after the fire, a full raft of changes will need to be made to your home. You’ll have to deal with […]
The post What Can and Can’t Be Saved after A House Fire: The Honest Truth appeared first on Green Building Canada.
Where Are All Those Shut-Offs?! Be Ready Before Disaster Strikes In this weekly Q&A column, retired builder/building inspector Cam Allen answers readers’ home renovation questions. Have a question? Enter it in the form below. A question from a reader who […]
The post Where Are All Those Shut-Offs?! Be Ready Before Disaster Strikes appeared first on Green Building Canada.
-1-1.png)
This was the best CPD i’ve done in the 10 years i’ve been here.”
Phil Weller, Partner, Building Consultancy and Lease Exit
That was the feedback from one participant after a series of tailored ESG training workshops delivered across Newmark’s UK service lines.
Our sustainability Foundations for Real Estate courses are aimed at businesses working across the built environment who wish to improve and refresh foundational sustainability knowledge across their organisation and provide the support and space for individuals to reflect on their role and scope for action. They offer a clear, practical overview of sustainability in the context of real estate, setting out the case for action from a scientific, regulatory and business perspective.
More information on our Tailored Learning & Leadership Training.
Newmark is a leading commercial real estate adviser with a significant UK presence, providing services across areas including capital markets, leasing, planning and valuation.
As sustainability becomes an increasingly important part of the real estate conversation, Newmark wanted to build knowledge, confidence and capability across its teams – helping people understand the issues, their relevance to the industry, and the role they can play in delivering better outcomes for clients.
With sustainability and ESG rising rapidly up the agenda in the built environment for clients, lenders and consultants, upskilling Newmark’s UK service lines had become important for the business.
The aim was to build a broad and practical knowledge base across teams, so people felt better equipped to engage with the topic in their day-to-day roles.
Working closely with the Newmark team, we developed four workshops tailored to different parts of the business – Occupier Solutions, Corporate Property Management, Planning and Development, Building Consultancy and Lease Exit and Valuations.
the sessions didn’t just build knowledge, they gave colleagues the confidence to have more informed, credible conversations with clients and to start embedding sustainability into their day-to-day work.”
Lea Vavrik, head of esg, europe & UK, who comissioned the series
UKGBC translated complex sustainability topics into practical, role-specific insights for our teams.”
Lea Vavrik, Head of ESG, Europe & UK
As with all UKGBC training, the workshops were designed to be engaging, practical and participative, creating space for delegates to ask questions, test ideas and unpack the complexities of sustainability and ESG in a way that felt relevant to their work.
They were all expertly run by our in-house facilitation team and supported by our technical team, who provided valuable insights into ESG, climate mitigation, risk and climate resilience.
Across the sessions, we explored topics including sustainability drives, climate risk and adaptation, certifications across the sector, green leases and more – helping teams build both understanding and confidence in an area that is becoming increasingly central to the future of real estate.
Through each workshop, we saw teams develop and understand their agency for sustainability. Through all the sessions, people were able to appreciate the drivers for clients and the wider sector, and to link those through to their day-to-day work.
And we saw hoe teams realised that they can be proactive in developing their service offers to include sustainability more explicitly; that they can be confident in asking questions of clients and pushing for more sustainable outcomes.
Finally we watched as teams and people who work for the same organisation made connections and build partnership – and for us, that alone was a great outcome!
If you’re interested in our service lines training, get in touch with our learning team for a discovery call. We’d love to co-create an offering tailored to your specific needs and ambitions.
The post How Tailored ESG Training Helped Newmark Build Confidence Across Its UK Service Lines appeared first on UKGBC.
The Warm Homes Fund represents a critical opportunity to move beyond short-term, stop start interventions and instead lay the foundations for a long-term, investible retrofit market capable of delivering warmer homes, lower bills and meaningful progress towards the UK’s climate goals.
UKGBC welcomes the opportunity to feed into this Call for Evidence and the breadth of issues it seeks to address across retrofit delivery, local government capability, community energy, and emerging service‑based energy models. The current system is fragmented, administratively burdensome and unable to provide the long‑term certainty required for supply chains, investors and local partners to grow. We therefore welcome the Fund’s focus on repayable finance, area‑based approaches, and the role of energy‑as‑a‑service models — all of which have the potential to unlock new pathways for investment and accelerate the transition to a resilient, low‑carbon housing stock.
The post UKGBC responds to the Warm Homes Fund’s Call for Evidence appeared first on UKGBC.
The Whole Life Carbon (WLC) Framework aims to support low-carbon decision-making across a building’s life cycle, while also helping to guide projects toward net-zero aligned outcomes.
The free resource outlines practical approaches and options to minimising whole life carbon- the sum of all greenhouse gas emissions associated with a building, from material extraction and construction, through its use, to demolition and disposal – from early design through to operation and end-of-life.
It also promotes clearer accountability, improved whole life carbon assessment and disclosure across projects and portfolios.
Building on the Net Zero Carbon Framework Definition, which was launched by UKGBC in 2019, the updated WLC Framework provides guiding principles and actions to help organisations minimise whole life carbon and manage residual emissions.
Designed to be approachable and accessible, the WLC Framework consists of four overarching principles and four delivery principles, supported by sub-principles and life-cycle based actions to implement at each stage of a building project.
Industry bodies previously used UKGBC’s the 2019 framework, and related other tools, to support development of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (NZCBS), which was launched in February and sets out a science-led methodology for defining and demonstrating net zero carbon alignment.
The new and updated framework can be used alongside the UK NZCBS and other industry methods and standards, acting as a practical serving as a reference tool for built environment professionals, including; developers, owners and operators, designers, consultants, contractors, supply Property and facilities managers, product manufacturers and local planning authorities.
Yetunde Abdul, Director of Industry Transformation at UKGBC, said:
Reducing whole life carbon emissions is essential to creating a more resilient and future-ready built environment. As expectations around sustainability and carbon performance continue to grow, organisations need practical tools that support consistent and informed decision-making across the full life cycle of buildings.
This updated framework is designed to help drive industry-wide action by supporting better design making, strengthening accountability and embedding whole life carbon thinking into projects from the outset.”
Philippa Birch-Wood, Head of Climate Action at UKGBC, said:
Whole life carbon must become a core consideration in every building project if the sector is serious about delivering net zero. This updated framework provides practical guidance to help organisations reduce emissions, strengthen accountability and make better carbon decisions from the earliest stages of development.
Designed to complement initiatives such as the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, the framework will help organisations improve assessment, reporting and disclosure practices while supporting the transition to net-zero aligned buildings.”
The post New framework to help reduce and manage carbon emissions launched by UKGBC appeared first on UKGBC.
Joanne Wheeler, Co-Head of Policy & Places at UKGBC, said:
The CCC has made the challenge plain: the UK must adapt faster or face mounting threats to people, places and the economy. UKGBC’s Climate Resilience Roadmap shows how that shift can be made in practice, with joined-up action across the built environment and government. The challenge is serious, but it is not beyond us if we choose to act now.”
The Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) latest assessment of climate risk is a clear and urgent signal that the UK must accelerate adaptation now. Climate impacts are already being felt across the country, and the report makes plain that higher temperatures, flooding, drought and cascading infrastructure risks will intensify unless government, business and communities act at pace. UKGBC strongly welcomes the CCC’s focus on practical, evidence-based action, and the emphasis on clear targets, delivery plans and accountability.
This message echoes what UKGBC has been saying through our Climate Resilience Roadmap, which sets out how the built environment can move from awareness of climate risk to assessment, prioritisation and implementation. We have long argued that resilience cannot sit in isolation: it must be integrated with decarbonisation, nature, health and wellbeing, and long-term value. The CCC’s report reinforces that approach, particularly in relation to homes, infrastructure, public services, and the need to protect the most vulnerable.
On the built environment, the CCC highlights the need for new buildings to be fit for a changing climate, for existing homes and assets to be retrofitted and upgraded, for better preparedness, and for cooling and water resilience to be addressed at scale. UKGBC’s Climate Resilience Roadmap supports exactly this shift: from broad ambition to the practical, site, portfolio, and community-level decisions needed to reduce risk and deliver more resilient places.
For industry, the message is straightforward. Climate resilience needs to become a core part of investment, design, planning, procurement and asset management. That means acting now on heat risk, flood risk, water scarcity and infrastructure interdependencies, and using the tools, standards and methods already available to make adaptation routine rather than exceptional.
For government, the priority is equally clear. The CCC sets out the case for stronger objectives, measurable targets, delivery plans and monitoring, backed by regulation, standards and investment. UKGBC support this direction and would add that policy must enable joined-up action across departments and sectors, so that resilience measures are not delivered piecemeal. Planning policy, building standards, infrastructure development, and funding programmes all need to reflect the climate risks we already face, and the more severe future risks that are now unavoidable.
There is a strong case for greater emphasis on nature-based solutions, passive cooling, flood risk management and long-term asset maintenance, all of which can deliver resilience and wider co-benefits. The CCC’s analysis shows that many adaptation actions are cost-effective today, and that delay only increases cost and harm. UKGBC believes this should galvanise a shift in both mindset and delivery: adaptation is no longer a future issue, but an immediate investment in safety, wellbeing and economic stability.
The CCC’s report and UKGBC’s Climate Resilience Roadmap both make the same case: adaptation needs to move from principle to practical delivery. The UK needs clear leadership, practical delivery and sustained investment to create a well-adapted built environment. The opportunity here is to reduce harm, protect lives and livelihoods, and create places that resilient, inclusive and fit for the climate reality we are already entering.
The post UKGBC responds to the CCC’s ‘A Well Adapted UK’ report appeared first on UKGBC.
Hello, learner.
Are you ready to start building your knowledge about sustainability and the built environment?
Great. But before you dive in, I want to ask you one important question:
What will you do with that new knowledge?
It might feel like an odd place to start. But in my world of learning and development, we’ve come to realise something vital: knowledge alone doesn’t change much. Real change happens when knowledge is applied; when it shifts how we think, decide and act in our day-to-day roles and drives action.
A great starting point is our Level 1 learning.
UKGBC’s introductory learning is designed to support professionals across the built environment to build essential sustainability knowledge, no matter your foundations.
If you’re new to sustainability and want a clear introduction to the core concepts, our starter pack is a great place to begin. It includes:
Together, these courses will help you build confidence, develop a shared language and understand how sustainability connects to your role. By the end, you’ll feel more knowledgeable and better equipped to take part in meaningful conversations at work.
If you’re looking to go deeper into specific topics, you can also explore our courses on Carbon Reduction and Climate Resilience and Adaptation, two interconnected areas that are increasingly critical across the built environment. These courses support you to bring key concepts into your work and engage more effectively with design teams and clients.
But here’s the thing.
Knowing more, or understanding more, is only the beginning. The harder and more important part comes after the learning.
That’s the doing.
By “doing”, we don’t mean something huge, unique or heroic. But we do believe it needs to be something, a first step. If none of us change anything we do, we won’t achieve the transformation the built environment needs into something regenerative, green, healthy and resilient.
The post From Learning to Doing: Taking your Sustainability Knowledge Further appeared first on UKGBC.