The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) and Minister for Industry and Economic Security Alan Mak have brought together leaders from across the construction industry to sign up to “Five Client Carbon Commitments” – pledges which will help the sector to achieve Net Zero.

There is already a huge amount of work taking place across the construction industry to tackle the Net Zero challenge- today’s announcement is the next step. “The Five Client Carbon Commitments” are:

1 Procure for low carbon construction and provide incentives in contracts.
2 Set phase out dates for fossil fuel use.
3 Eliminate the most carbon intensive concrete products.
4 Eliminate the most carbon intensive steel products.
5 Sign up to PAS 2080, allowing a common standard in carbon management and reporting.

By signing up to these five pledges organisations are signalling, in a common language, their commitment to i) significantly cut their construction carbon emissions and ii) setting out their own roadmaps to achieve those commitments.

The pledges cover the largest emitting areas in infrastructure delivery, including ending the use of diesel on construction sites (by transitioning to alternative energy sources such as diesel replacements, green
hydrogen, and electric powered plant) and shifting to the lowest carbon sources of concrete and steel
available.

Matt Palmer (pictured), Industry Sponsor for Net Zero and Biodiversity at the Construction Leadership Council and Executive Director, Lower Thames Crossing said: “The UK relies on the infrastructure organisations build and run, but the way we have been doing so is incompatible with a Net Zero future. We cannot simply stop building and maintaining the infrastructure society relies on, so we must change and to adopt new materials and technologies. We need to be bold, and we need our partners and supply chain to come with us. Our commitments today provide will start to provide clear client direction to decarbonise the largest emitting areas of construction.”