Webinar: Decarbonisation as a Catalyst for Affordable Housing in Cities

Embodied carbon policy: Trends and progress in the US Northeast

Michelle Lambert from the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) provided an overview of embodied carbon policies at the state and city level in the Northeast US. Key policy trends in the US include a preference for financial incentives such as tax exemptions over regulation as well as a focus on decarbonising conventional materials such as concrete, steel, and aluminium. At the state level, a popular approach continues to be procurement programmes such as "Buy Clean" or embedding embodied carbon in building and energy codes.

Starting with the “low-hanging fruit”: Office-to-residential conversion delivering affordable housing in European cities

Lisa Graaf from the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) provided insights into sufficiency and the affordable housing agenda, detailing best practices in office-to-affordable-housing conversion in Europe. According to a study conducted by BPIE, four European cities successfully converted vacant offices into social housing at lower costs and faster delivery times compared to new construction, while not compromising on quality. These projects also incorporate innovative design and community spaces, and achieve resource savings and significantly lower emissions. A key motivating factor in all the cases was the housing crisis, the urgent need for social housing and a lack of land availability. The cities, depending on their local context had different entry points to tackling the issues at hand – in Baden-Württemberg, Germany for example, other co-benefits such as tackling loneliness and fostering community and social cohesion played a key role.

A deep dive into delivering a just transition in housing for the London Borough of Newham

While the adoption of promising policies and practices is increasing, the final presentation took a closer look at how these are implemented in practice within a city. Irene Garcia presented the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA) framework outlining city-level policies to address embodied carbon. While such frameworks help simplify complexity and provide a shared language and structure, cities must operationalise these policies and find actionable pathways in their local context.

The London Borough of Newham did just that by investigating where policy implementation is getting stuck in unlocking low-carbon and affordable housing at scale. Emma Pfeiffer from Dark Matter Labs discussed research into Newham’s 2024 Just Transition Plan and the tensions between achieving both an ambitious increase in affordable homes in Newham (five times the current rate) and an over 60 per cent reduction in whole life carbon. Their findings concluded that policy and material shifts are insufficient to deliver the required scale of change. Pfeiffer suggested that the solution requires incubating a new market type to deliver low-carbon affordable homes by default through a series of smaller shifts, including separating site works and building procurement and introducing modern methods of construction.

Jacob Heitland, Director of Climate Action at the London Borough of Newham, further identified reactionary policies which are hampering efforts to advance the uptake of low-embodied carbon materials including policies such as bans on combustible materials and height limits on structural timber use. Heitland is working to untangle politics from science and to spearhead a movement to enact meaningful policy change on building decarbonisation. He aims to build a task force to address these policy barriers and political resistance as well as leverage political momentum around growth, faster construction delivery, and job creation to advocate for bio-based materials

All the panelists emphasised the importance of local context and the need to develop a compelling narrative to enable policy implementation. While some cities have adopted ambitious policies and visions, a deeper understanding of how these translate into practice remains essential. Participants reiterated the value of exchanging on good practices, noting that although local conditions differ, cities can learn from one another by sharing about processes involved in driving change.