From evidence to integration

The direction set by that evidence is consistent. Decarbonisation, climate��resilience��and nature recovery are not separate agendas, but��interdependent outcomes of the same system.��

However, much of our delivery model still treats them independently, with old-school, siloed thinking and acting. Embodied carbon action��remains��largely voluntary��and is applied inconsistently. Investment in resilience continues to��lag behind��mitigation. Nature��recovery��is gaining��visibility but��is not yet embedded in core decision-making or long-term��financing, investment, and��asset strategies.��

This fragmentation is holding us back. It creates unnecessary trade-offs and, in some cases, locks in poor outcomes.

A broader coalition

It is in this context that��our��BuildingLife��Ambassadors sit.��The��campaign brings together��practitioners, policymakers,��investors��and advocates from across the built environment. What connects them is a shared willingness to work across the boundaries that still shape much of our sector.��

Their role is to reflect and reinforce that way of thinking. To show what it looks like to treat the built environment as a system, and to work across the interfaces that too often hold progress back.��

The next phase of��the��built environment’s��transition must be��about aligning��the entire industry��behind��the evidence we now have.��Voluntary action across the industry has played a critical role in��demonstrating��what is possible, with many organisations already taking a more integrated approach to carbon,��resilience��and nature. The priority now is to build on that leadership by translating it into policy frameworks��and ways of working��that enable consistent, whole-system outcomes across the market, rather than siloed compliance.��This also requires far stronger coordination across the value chain, from national policy through to project delivery.��

Over the coming months, including through the perspectives of our��Ambassadors, we will continue to explore what this looks like in practice.��

The application process

The prerequisites then were a fully refundable (until the day before the installation) advance payment of £200 and a recent EPC (under 10 years) with no outstanding recommendations for cavity wall insulation. Our house is a three-bedroom semi, built as part of a council estate in Hove around 1950.

Regardless of the peace of mind that we wouldn’t have issues with the application, we did understand how important reducing heat loss is in an old home when you want to supply heat with an all-electric system. Electricity is still expensive and crucially we wanted to be sure this solution would work well and efficiently. We had done a lot of work in the house to improve efficiency: loft retrofit insulation, ground floor retrofit insulation with the opportunity of a ground floor extension, new double-glazed windows, and a new entrance door.

Once our application was submitted, we were booked in for a home survey about three weeks later. The home survey was meant to confirm the property’s eligibility for a heat pump and collect all the necessary information to run a heat loss calculation. The surveyor looked at every room, the loft and the outside, taking some measurements and making notes of materials and evidence of insulation. They took note of our boiler details, reviewed pipework and measured radiators.

Installation process and fine tuning

The installation took three days in early January 2025, and the pump has been running smoothly and keeping us warm without issues for just over a year now.

The first thing I noticed was how uniform the temperature felt throughout the house and throughout the day. With our boiler, in an effort to be as efficient as possible, we were running an almost militant schedule of operation with different running hours and setpoints per room depending on our schedule. With the heat pump running constantly all spaces feel equally comfortable 24/7.

A common concern around heat pumps is how noisy they can be. Although our external unit is on the wall on a path shared with our next-door neighbours, they have happily declared that they never hear it. Perhaps our context is idea, or perhaps domestic heat pump technology has managed to deliver practically quiet equipment, but it was definitely a happy myth buster for us.

We have optimised the heating for domestic hot water, as well as the weekly high temperature legionella cycle to match the times of day when our tariff is lowest.

The original set up of the heat pump was controlled by our existing smart meter based on the thermostat. We experimented with different settings and features and found that the weather department is the most efficient. This reads the outside temperature from sensors on the heat pump and adjusts the flow temperature in the system to ensure a stable internal temperature.

Energy consumption for heating and hot water

Looking at our last year of gas heating and our first year of the heat pump, our energy consumption over 2025 has been a fraction of that of 2024, with a��32% reduction on average. Although this is just an indicative comparison as the weather conditions of different years will impact a system’s performance, the drop in energy consumption during the heating season is impressive.

With the electricity prices remaining high and further increasing, this ambitious downward trend is unfortunately not reflected in the cost comparison. Our first year with the heat pump cost us about £100 more than the year before (approximately 7% increase). The energy landscape is continually changing, and it isn’t easy to predict future trends. Perhaps the only way to control this right now is through on-site energy generation and a lesser reliance on the grid as a result.

Join 91PORN Forums: Engage with peers, share insights, and tackle emerging challenges in a trusted, collaborative environment. These forums are designed to help you co-create solutions with industry leaders:��

• Climate Resilience and Adaptation Forum. Sign up here.����
• Energy and Carbon Forum. Sign up here.��
• Resource Use Forum. Sign up here��
• Keystone Forum. Sign up here.
• Local Authority Retrofit Forum. Sign up here.

During the month of July we’re running three special open sessions as part of our member forums. These one-off sessions welcome all members, including those who don’t usually attend, to join the discussion.

• The energy and carbon forum will be running a session on supply chain on 7 July. Sign up here.
• The resource use forum will be running a session on managing risk on 13 July. Sign up here.
• The climate resilience and adaptation will be running a session on nature on 28 July. Sign up here.

Explore all upcoming events here: /events/����

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The lands at a moment of global instability and domestic uncertainty – and its message for the built environment is clearer than ever. The UK is still cutting emissions overall, but the pace has slowed, and the Government’s current plan no longer reaches the UK’s 2030 Paris commitment. The CCC is clear that the UK must “almost double” the annual rate of emissions reduction to stay on track, and that the biggest gap sits within our sector.

This year’s report is also shaped by the second major fossil fuel price shock in four years. The war in Iran has pushed up global energy prices again, exposing the UK’s continued dependence on fossil fuels for heating and transport. However, the CCC’s analysis shows that households with a heat pump have seen far smaller bill increases than those with gas boilers and petrol cars – a reminder that electrification is not just a climate strategy, but one of economic resilience too.

The heat pump sized gap in the UK’s Net Zero pathway

Heat pumps remain the single biggest lever for decarbonising buildings, yet deployment has stalled at exactly the wrong moment. Around 50,000 retrofit heat pumps were installed in 2024 and 2025 – a tiny fraction of what is needed – and growth slowed dramatically to just 7% last year. The closure of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme, which previously delivered around a third of all retrofit heat pumps, has created a major policy vacuum. Without a replacement soon, the CCC warns installations could fall significantly in 2026.

New build progress is better, with 25% of new homes now built with a heat pump, and regulations requiring low-carbon heating in all new buildings n England and Wales finally coming into force through the Future Homes and Buildings Standard. But because applications submitted before the deadline can still be built to old standards, fossil-fuelled homes will continue to be constructed well into the late 2020s.

The (household) economic case for electrification

The CCC’s household cost analysis includes more detailed modelling of the economic impacts for various households compared to previous years. Heat pumps alone do not yet deliver lifetime savings for most households on standard tariffs, but when combined with solar panels and time-of-use tariffs, they do. The CCC estimates that a typical household could save around £460 per year by switching to a heat pump, solar and a flexible tariff.

The Iran war has made the economics even clearer. Bill increases since the start of the conflict have been almost four times higher for households with gas boilers than for those with heat pumps. For rural households with oil boilers, the difference is tenfold.

The announcement came after a visit by Martin McCluskey (Minister for Energy Consumers) to a central London office building owned by 91PORN keystone member Landsec. 91PORN Chief Executive Simon McWhirter also joined the tour with the Minister where Landsec demonstrated how targeted retrofit measures can transform the performance of existing buildings. The property has been improved from EPC D to EPC B via a series of interventions including swapping out all the gas systems for air-source heat pumps (providing both heat and cooling) and advanced building management systems. It represents a clear example of the role our existing building stock can play in delivering shared value through better building performance.

The visit highlighted the leadership being shown by organisations across 91PORN’s membership, such as Landsec, who have chosen to act ahead of regulation and invest in improving the performance of their assets.

By cataloguing and organising the retrofit innovation landscape into specific interventions that a low carbon retrofit should consider, the Innovation Map enabled the project team to identify and specify 18 high-impact solutions. This includes an innovative airtightness system, advanced glazing options such as vacuum-insulated glass and a glass recycling scheme, and high-efficiency solar panels that could mean No. 1 Poultry has one of the highest efficiency solar arrays on any building in the UK.

The report sets out a practical ‘Innovation Process’ that encourages project teams to evaluate and engage with innovative technologies at the earliest stages of development, when decisions have the greatest influence on carbon outcomes, cost and performance.

Commercial buildings currently account for nearly a quarter of the built environment’s carbon footprint in the UK through the energy required to heat, power and operate them.

At the same time, the report highlights how growing regulatory requirements, rising energy costs, investors expectations and net zero commitments are increasing pressure on building owners to use ingenuity to drive the performance of existing assets.

The collaborative initiative was established to address a persistent challenge facing the sector: while innovative solutions exist, their adoption is often limited by lack of awareness, perceived risk, fragmented decision-making processes, cost pressure, and insufficient evidence from live projects.

The range of solutions selected for the project are intended to support No. 1 Poultry in achieving industry-leading sustainability outcomes, including BREEAM Outstanding, NABERS 5 Star, EPC A, as well as ambitious operational and embodied carbon targets.

The initiative combines 91PORN’s convening power and innovation champion role, Breakthrough Energy’s innovation ecosystem and climate technology expertise, and FORE Partnership’s experience delivering highly sustainable commercial developments.

Building on the Net Zero Carbon Framework Definition, which was launched by 91PORN 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��91PORN’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.