Here, Euan Somerville from crbn solutions, part of the Morris & Spottiswood Group, discusses the importance of early engagement and why it is essential for sustainable building.
The built environment accounts for 25% of the UK’s carbon emissions, according to the UK Green Building Council. Net Zero is legally mandated by 2050 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with Scotland mandated for 2045, putting pressure on every sector to decarbonise. Construction faces a particular problem: 80% of buildings that will be in use in 2050 already exist. Retrofit and refurbishment work will largely determine whether we hit national targets.
The technology exists – heat pumps, suitable insulation, and renewable energy systems all work. Yet many projects still miss their carbon targets because sustainability gets considered too late. Once major design and procurement decisions are locked in, the opportunities to build in meaningful performance improvements have reduced.
The multi-disciplinary imperative
Buildings produce carbon in two ways: embodied carbon from materials, construction, use and disposal, and operational carbon from building systems, such as heating, cooling, and power. Tackling both means design teams, and contractors need to work together from the start, and not in sequence.
The challenge is that many procurement methods still treat sustainability as a downstream consideration. In a traditional approach, architects design buildings around spatial needs, aesthetics and the client brief, with structural engineers making sure that the buildings are safe, functional, and built to last. Often mechanical and electrical engineers receive drawings where orientation, envelope specs and thermal mass have been decided. Contractors arrive later still, often finding that alternative lower-carbon materials or construction methods could have worked if they had been involved during the early stages of the project. It’s true that in the ‘Design & Build’ procurement approach, contractors are brought in earlier, yet even here, sustainability and carbon expertise is frequently an afterthought rather than a founding input.
This sequential approach still drives underperformance across much of the industry. Architects often optimise for thermal metrics without fully interrogating lower-carbon alternatives. Mechanical and electrical engineers design building loads in a prescribed fashion, rarely empowered to challenge whether those loads could be reduced through smarter controls or demand optimisation. Carbon assessments, particularly those covering embodied carbon, are frequently retrospective, undertaken once key decisions such as design and procurement routes are largely fixed. Each decision is defensible in isolation.
There are exceptions. Some practices now embed sustainability teams, and a number of forward-thinking mechanical and electrical firms have intelligent buildings divisions with genuine performance expertise. But these remain the exception, not the norm. Until integrated thinking becomes standard practice, underperformance will continue to be designed in by process, not intent.
Integrated project delivery works differently. In-house architects, mechanical and electrical specialists and carbon consultants working together from the start can test design decisions against both environmental performance and what’s achievable in practice.
An example of this is on a recent fit-out project, where we achieved an upfront embodied carbon figure of 93kgCO₂e/m², well below the 2025 threshold in the UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard (pilot version) and already under the 2038 target of 100kgCO₂e/m². This result came from early design coordination that built-in modular construction and circular economy principles from the beginning. Bringing contractors in after the design was frozen would have made this far harder and more expensive to achieve.
Data-driven decisions from day one
Too many sustainability-related decisions in existing buildings rest on assumptions about how a building might perform rather than how it operates in real life. Without proper baseline data, building modifications often disappoint from a building performance perspective.
Good early-stage analysis includes practices such as obtaining and utilising half-hourly energy data – which reveals actual consumption patterns, thermographic surveys showing areas of real-world heat loss, air pressure testing for gaps between design, standards-based data and reality, and building management system data on how occupancy and settings affect energy use.
Early contractor involvement improves data collection. Experienced contractors know which metrics matter, and which can mislead. They spot the gap between theoretical proposals and what’s achievable on site, as well as some of the low-risk opportunities that are available. They know when intrusive surveys are needed to find hidden problems such as asbestos, inefficient mechanical or electrical equipment, and legacy materials, that affect programme and carbon performance.
Buildings constructed before 2000 require particular due diligence. Asbestos, lead paint and similar legacy materials are primarily a health and safety issue, demanding careful identification and controlled removal. While their presence does not typically drive embodied or operational carbon calculations directly, late discovery can affect programme, logistics and associated transport and waste impacts. Identifying each of these during the planning stage enables proper sequencing and compliant handling. Discovering them mid-construction disrupts delivery and forces reactive decisions, rarely conducive to good outcomes, environmental or otherwise.
Collaboration as risk mitigation
Early identification of constraints and potential carbon-reduction interventions creates the time needed to develop viable solutions. Supply chain limitations around lower-carbon materials can undermine sustainability ambitions if recognised too late; Early Contractor Involvement helps surface these risks and identify realistic alternatives, where suitable.
On most medium to large projects, design teams now deploy BIM modelling and formal clash detection processes. However, the value lies not just in running coordination workshops, but in ensuring the insights inform strategic decisions early enough to influence specification, sequencing and compliance.
Regulatory or buildability challenges identified at concept design or spatial coordination stage remain far easier, and cheaper, to resolve than those uncovered once the technical design is locked down.
Single-point accountability also matters with contractual environmental targets. When multiple parties deliver a project, disputes over missed performance are common. Was it the design? The construction? The commissioning? Or even the client brief that was at fault? This ambiguity helps nobody and usually surfaces too late to fix.
Integrated teams with unified accountability solve problems together. The Building Safety Act’s ‘Golden Thread’ of building information is simpler to maintain when one organisation manages the whole process. Information about building systems and carbon-related measures stay coherent instead of fragmenting across handovers.
It should also be mentioned here that modular and offsite construction helps with both sustainability and risk. Prefabricated elements built in controlled environments achieve more precision with less waste. Installation times are generally quicker which helps to reduce site disruption and programme risk. Factory conditions allow better material tracking and quality control, components can be designed for future disassembly and reuse, and on-site waste drops substantially.
The commercial case for early engagement
Taking a step further back, considering carbon either before or during design costs far less than retrofitting solutions during construction. When environmental features get value-engineered out late, clients lose both the carbon benefits and the money spent developing them.
Problems solved early avoid delays. Arranging supply chains months ahead avoids premium pricing for rushed orders. Early engagement lets contractors secure low-carbon materials and specialist subcontractors during the planning stage, meaning quality is guaranteed instead of using whoever is available.
Meanwhile, value engineering undertaken early can improve environmental performance by finding alternative technical solutions. If left late, it can result in cutting features to claw back budget, with sustainability-related measures first in line primarily as they are often viewed as being non-essential.
Businesses that are serious about sustainability need projects that deliver on environmental performance, which in turn helps win work as procurement increasingly favours these approaches. Early engagement builds in the measurement and verification needed to accurately determine performance instead of relying on educated projections.
The technology to decarbonise buildings exists. The knowledge exists. Success depends on whether these converge at the correct project stage. Multi-disciplinary engagement from the start creates conditions for genuine environmental performance improvements through better decisions, proactive risk management and solutions that serve both sustainability and commercial needs. Start these conversations as early as you can.
For more information on crbn solutions, please visit: www.crbnsolutions.co.uk or contact info@crbnsolutions.co.uk