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The invisible embodied carbon in reaching net-zero targets

Reaching net-zero often feels like solving the wrong problem in the dark. You upgrade the obvious. You tick the boxes. But something still doesn’t add up. That “something” is usually embodied carbon—the carbon cost baked into the technologies we rely on to deliver our decarbonisation plans.

We rarely see it. But it’s there—from the steel and cement used in construction, to the materials and manufacturing processes behind solar panels and wind turbines. These tools of the energy transition carry a carbon load of their own—and it adds up fast.

The solar paradox

Take solar panels. Long-term, they help reduce operational emissions. But upfront, they demand energy-intensive mining, manufacturing, and transport—generating carbon before a single kilowatt-hour is saved. In many cases, it can take years for panels to “pay back” their carbon cost.

This doesn’t mean solar is the wrong choice. But it does mean we need to see the full picture. Real progress isn’t just about adding renewables—it’s about asking whether we’re reducing demand in the first place.

The overlooked opportunity: operational waste

The fastest way to cut emissions—and the one with the lowest carbon overhead—is improving how buildings perform right now. Most commercial assets consume more energy than they need to. That’s often due to legacy systems, poor controls, or operational drift over time. Fixing that doesn’t require carbon-intensive materials. It requires insight, prioritisation, and action.

Before you install new tech, it’s worth asking: have you addressed the avoidable waste first?

Make embodied carbon visible by reducing what you don’t need

Embodied carbon isn’t going away. It’s part of the system. But when you reduce the need for new interventions—by improving operational efficiency—you avoid generating it in the first place. That’s where the real leverage sits. Fewer upgrades. Smaller footprints. Faster impact.

Sustainability performance needs to be tracked and managed like any other business metric. With rising carbon costs and stricter reporting rules, this will soon be non-negotiable. But the upside is clear: more efficient buildings, lower emissions, better indoor conditions—and a faster path to credible net-zero outcomes.

The power of perspective: how understanding Energy Use Intensity can transform your building’s performance

You wouldn’t drive a car without watching the rev counter. Not because it tells you how far you’ve gone, but because it shows how hard the engine’s working. Energy Use Intensity (EUI) works the same way for buildings.

Energy Use Intensity shows how much energy a building uses per square metre. The lower the number, the more efficiently the space is performing. It’s a straightforward benchmark—but it’s more than a metric. It gives decision-makers a way to step back, see what’s really going on, and move forward with clarity.

A baseline that makes action easier

When you start with Energy Use Intensity, you’re not guessing. You’re measuring. That matters—especially if you're responsible for net-zero delivery or portfolio-level decarbonisation. Energy Use Intensity gives you a normalised way to compare performance across buildings, identify outliers, and set clear, credible targets.

It’s often the first piece of insight we use with clients. Why? Because it gives immediate perspective. You can see how your performance stacks up against similar buildings, what’s driving excess use, and what needs to change first. Without sensors. Without delay. Just a starting point that makes the next step obvious.

From benchmark to outcome

Once you’ve got your baseline, Energy Use Intensity becomes a guide for strategy. You can set a target Energy Use Intensity as part of your decarbonisation roadmap. Then track how each intervention, like a system upgrade or control change, affects the result. If the number doesn’t move, you’ll know it’s time to adjust. That’s how you avoid wasted investment and stay aligned with your goals.

The benefits go beyond emissions. A strong Energy Use Intensity signals operational efficiency, and that matters to tenants and investors. In a market increasingly driven by sustainability performance, buildings with low Energy Use Intensity are more attractive, more resilient, and more future-proof.

Don’t overcomplicate it

You don’t need full real-time data capture to get started. Most buildings already provide enough information to estimate a useful Energy Use Intensity. From there, you can decide what’s worth monitoring more closely—and what can wait.

With the right insight, you can make smarter energy decisions faster. Most organisations can make meaningful improvements within six months, long before any complex tech is in place.

Reporting under CSRD starts this year—here’s what that means

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) came into force across Europe in January 2023. Globally, countries are introducing their own frameworks, with momentum building toward greater alignment across sectors, markets, and reporting standards. But it’s 2025 when the real pressure begins.

This is the first year that thousands of large companies across the EU are expected to report under the new framework, using data from 2024. For sustainability leaders, that shifts the conversation from planning to proof. It’s no longer about whether your organisation is preparing. It’s whether your portfolio is ready.

CSRD demands more than ambition. It requires clarity, structure, and verifiable insight into how your assets actually perform. And that means energy efficiency, emissions, and operational transparency are now headline issues—not backend metrics.

What UK companies need to know

Even though the UK is no longer part of the EU, the CSRD could still apply. If your company has securities listed on an EU-regulated market, or if it generates more than €150 million in EU turnover, you may fall within scope. This includes UK firms with large EU subsidiaries or branches that generate significant revenue. It’s critical to review your structure now. Reporting obligations will expand, and compliance won’t just mean better paperwork—it means disclosing meaningful, auditable sustainability data across your operations.

Early CSRD reporters are flagging around 24 material topics and 40 key impacts, risks and opportunities on average—but there’s no consistent way they’re doing it. The takeaway? If your team isn’t aligned on how to approach double materiality, you’re going to struggle to report clearly or credibly.

Not just data—disclosure with direction

CSRD doesn’t just ask for more data. It requires meaningful and auditable reporting on how your operations align with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) expectations. This includes specific disclosures on energy use, carbon emissions, climate risk, and the resilience of assets across your portfolio.

This level of transparency means moving beyond estimates and modelled projections, toward real-world performance indicators that stand up to external scrutiny. Friends of EFRAG notes that while Scope 1 and 2 emissions are widely reported with clear targets, Scope 3 remains a significant challenge, especially across supply chains. Many companies set net-zero targets without clear pathways to reach them, making performance tracking and transparency non-negotiable.

The organisations that will thrive under this directive are those who already know how their buildings perform—and who can clearly show what’s improving, what’s not, and what comes next.

The role of building performance in CSRD

Buildings are one of the biggest contributors to operational emissions. That makes them a focal point in CSRD reporting, whether you manage a portfolio of offices, retail, logistics, or mixed-use assets.

But the real challenge isn’t the emissions themselves. It’s knowing where they come from, what’s driving them, and how to bring them down—credibly, not theoretically.

That’s where operational insight becomes essential. You don’t need hundreds of sensors or new systems to get started. Often, the first indicators are already available. What’s missing is a clear line of sight between performance, targets, and action.

Don’t wait for compliance to catch you

CSRD is being phased in, but the reputational pressure is already here. Investors, regulators, and occupiers are all looking for clear evidence of environmental performance. And with carbon reporting under greater scrutiny, gaps in visibility won’t just delay compliance—they’ll erode confidence.

It’s not about racing to comply. It’s about using CSRD as a structure to validate what you already know: where performance is strong, where the friction points are, and how to prioritise action that actually delivers impact. Readiness isn’t about ticking boxes. It’s about knowing where you stand.

You don’t need to have all the answers. But you do need to be clear on how your portfolio performs today, and what needs to happen next.

New EU Energy Directive: what it means for commercial real estate

In April 2024, the European Parliament adopted a major update to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD)—and it’s now officially in force. While the direction of travel has been clear for some time, this revision puts regulatory weight behind it. For the first time, minimum performance standards for non-residential buildings are legally binding across the EU: class F by 2030, class E by 2033.

But the most significant shift isn’t just the targets. It’s the infrastructure being built around them—data registers, renovation passports, and full lifecycle visibility. The EU isn’t just asking for efficiency. It’s mandating transparency.

This is about more than compliance

The directive marks a clear move toward transparency. Alongside updated energy thresholds, it introduces renovation passports, national building registers, and more robust operational reporting. These additions point to a future where performance is no longer privately managed or loosely defined. The data will be centralised, comparable, and public.

What this means for commercial real estate is simple: if you don’t have a clear, verified understanding of how your assets perform, you’re at risk. Once performance data enters the public domain, any gap between what you report and what’s actually happening on the ground becomes a reputational and financial liability.

What about the UK?

While the UK is no longer bound by EU law, the direction of travel is similar. The UK’s Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) already ban new leases on commercial properties rated below EPC band E, and by 2030, all leased non-domestic buildings are expected to reach band B. That’s a sharper target than the EU’s class E. And with future updates to the UK’s Energy Performance of Buildings framework under review, pressure is only building. For UK organisations with EU assets—or those eyeing investment or partnerships across Europe—alignment with EPBD-style transparency isn’t optional. It's a signal that the UK market, too, is shifting from ad-hoc compliance to systemic accountability.

Decisions need to be rooted in real data

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) offer only part of the picture. Without real-time visibility, strategic decisions around retrofits, asset use, and financial planning remain reactive. The longer that visibility gap remains, the harder it becomes to respond to tightening regulation with confidence.

Those ahead of the curve aren’t waiting. They’re building internal clarity now—using operational data to validate performance, identify inefficiencies, and prioritise actions that deliver measurable impact. That clarity allows for faster, better-informed decisions that protect long-term value and resilience.

We believe action starts with clarity. You can’t improve what you can’t see—and that’s where many sustainability plans stall. We help leaders identify waste, track performance in real time, and unlock the insights that drive down risk before it shows up in your compliance report.

Grid capacity is becoming a hidden blocker to net-zero

Across Europe, organisations are pressing ahead with electrification. Gas boilers are being replaced with heat pumps. Retrofit plans are being drawn up. Net-zero strategies are moving forward.

But too often, these projects run into a critical barrier: the grid can’t supply the energy needed to power them.

Heat pumps don’t fail—until they do

The issue comes down to load. Heat pumps require a significant amount of electricity. When they're sized to match the output of a gas boiler, without first reducing total demand, they often exceed the site's available grid connection.

That triggers a cascade of problems: delays while waiting for extra capacity, costly upgrades to the connection. Or no upgrade at all—because the capacity simply isn’t available.

What should have been a significant decarbonisation step becomes a bottleneck. The system is in. But it can’t be turned on.

It’s not an edge case—it’s happening everywhere

In the UK, more than £200 billion in energy projects are currently stuck in grid connection queues (National Grid ESO, 2023). In the Netherlands, grid operators are pausing new connections in areas of high demand. Capacity is capped, and electrification is outrunning infrastructure.

The result? Heat pumps sit idle. Buildings go unheated. Projects stall—not because the ambition was wrong, but because the strategy skipped a step.

What’s going wrong—and how to fix it

The core problem isn’t the heat pump. It’s the assumption that you can plug it in and carry on as before. That approach ignores the one factor you can control: demand. It’s like switching to an electric car but never checking how far the battery can go. You keep driving the same way and then wonder why you’re stuck on the side of the road.

When you optimise performance first, by fixing controls, tuning systems, and reducing waste, you lower the baseline energy use. That means you can install a smaller heat pump. One that might work within the power you already have. One that doesn’t trigger delays, redesigns, or overspend.

Start with the building, not the tech

Sustainability isn’t about what you install. It’s about what you stop wasting.

That’s why insight is essential. You need to know what’s running, what’s using energy without delivering value, and where efficiency can be gained now, not once the project is already in motion.

Your infrastructure has limits—budget, space, and now power. The best projects don’t ignore those limits. They design around them. If electrification is the goal, efficiency is the enabler, and the strongest net-zero strategies are the ones that can actually be delivered.

EU Flags major gaps in Ireland’s 2030 climate strategy

In May 2025, the European Commission delivered a stark assessment of Ireland’s National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), highlighting a significant shortfall in the country's projected emissions reductions. The NECP anticipates a 25.4% reduction by 2030, falling well below the legally binding target of 42% under the EU's effort-sharing regulation.

The Commission's critique extends beyond the emissions gap, pointing to a lack of clarity on funding mechanisms for the necessary €119–€125 billion investment outlined in the plan. This absence of a detailed financing strategy raises concerns about the feasibility of achieving the proposed climate objectives.

This evaluation signals potential regulatory tightening and increased scrutiny. Properties with poor energy performance may face increased pressure to undergo efficiency upgrades, which can impact asset valuations and investment decisions.

Implications for commercial real estate

The European Commission’s latest assessment is a reminder of how quickly expectations are shifting. Climate strategies that once felt ambitious are now considered baseline. And across commercial real estate, there’s growing pressure—not just to set goals, but to show progress.

In this environment, understanding how assets perform becomes more than a reporting exercise. It’s the foundation for resilience, credibility, and future value. Aligning with regulatory targets is part of the picture. But increasingly, it's the ability to demonstrate efficiency and impact that sets portfolios apart.

That starts with visibility. The clearer you are on how your portfolio operates today, the more confidently you can navigate what’s next.

Do digital twins have what it takes?

Digital twins sound like the future: a full virtual replica of your building, fed by real-time data, designed to optimise performance. But what does that really mean?

It’s not just a 3D map. A true digital twin combines design data, real-time system inputs, and big data modelling. Think: a Google Street View of your building, layered with live equipment data, behavioural trends, and predictive analytics. In theory, that’s total visibility. In practice, it’s a heavy lift.

The problem: big promises, big investment

To build one, you need it all—plant data, sensors, weather feeds, IT systems, occupant behaviour. Then you have to maintain it. Without constant updates, the model loses accuracy. That means high upfront costs and ongoing resourcing just to keep it relevant.

And while the investment goes into data infrastructure, the basics—like fixing poor control settings or inefficient run-times—can get delayed. The insight may be sophisticated, but if it takes 18 months to surface, it’s not helping you now.

The alternative: not big data—right data

Most portfolios already hold the data that matters. Utility records. Historic usage. Standard control logic. When analysed properly, these reveal the patterns that are causing waste—and the actions that will cut it.

With the right benchmarking and performance insight, you can start seeing results in under six months. No waiting for a full twin. No major system installs. Just clear, focused decisions that drive measurable improvement.

Better decisions start sooner

Digital twins may play a role later. But you don’t need one to get started. Especially if what you need is clarity, not complexity. The right data, in the right hands, beats the perfect model that’s still in development.

It’s not about big data. It’s about smart priorities.

The future of sustainable buildings: the role of ISO 52120 in building energy management

A few years back, the International Organisation for Standards began providing a methodology for ranking a Building Energy Management System’s performance, which is crucial to optimising energy efficiency. It was developed as a European Standard as part of the European Union’s response to its climate change commitment and is now often seen as a significant guideline for assessing energy management, monitoring, and more. And this is why. Read more >

The three pillars of zero-emissions buildings, according to the U.S. Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy has introduced a standardised, verifiable basis for defining a zero-emissions building. The first part of this definition, focusing on Operating Emissions, outlines three fundamental criteria that are crucial for a building to be considered a zero-emissions building:

What does comfort and air quality actually cost you?

Things as simple as simultaneously heating and cooling adjacent spaces leads to waste - and reduced comfort. Only one in five buildings has a control system regulating heating, cooling, ventilation and hot water generation. And still most of these buildings operate at a Class C energy efficiency level. The ones without control systems are worse again, operating at efficiency grades of E, F or G.

How sustainable practices pay off in more ways than one

Reducing waste leads to a lower base of energy usage - and that only brings benefits. If you’re in the market for a new house, would you go for a townhouse with a D-BER certification, or would you rather invest in a sustainable A-rated property? Many would most likely choose the A-rated property. There’s less maintenance, little investment and lower risk.

Bridging the gap between those setting the sails and those steering the ship

Transparent, tangible information can be powerful in the hands of those with the responsibility and resources to implement change. The right information, paired with the right knowledge and expertise, becomes valuable insight.

The Performance Gap: bridging the divide between building design and energy consumption

Imagine this scenario: You have just bought yourself the latest Tesla 208 Cd, which is built for speed, endurance, and range with its improved aerodynamics and wider chassis.

The 3 R’s of energy waste: Reduce, Recycle, Report

Recycling is part of our lives from the moment we’re born. Plastic goes into one bin, while green waste goes into another. Old clothes are donated, and shopping bags are reused. Though we might not have been consciously raised with the 3Rs of waste management—Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse—we apply them daily.

Achieving sustainability goals in a multi-tenant office building

Ever met a child who didn’t want to win a competition, or even just be the best at something they love? That winner-driven mentality has stuck with most adults you see around you - possibly yourself included. Our competitive instincts can be traced back to our early ancestors, who had to compete for food, shelter and everything needed to survive. You could say that the desire to win runs in our DNA.

From maintenance to mileage: how building data can keep us on track

The genius of a car dashboard lies in its simplicity. Despite the ever-increasing complexity of technology it operates on, it provides only the essential information to help us reach a destination safely, efficiently and very importantly…on time!!

Why energy efficiency initiatives should be a top priority in decarbonisation

It seems a quick fix: spending large budgets on renewables, digital twins, and high-tech devices to reach net-zero targets. And yet, it won’t fix a thing. Because if most of the energy generated by these renewable resources goes wasted, we only make progress on paper.

How understanding EUI can transform your building’s performance

One of the most powerful tools in the pursuit of energy efficiency in commercial buildings is the Energy Use Intensity (EUI) metric. This standardised benchmark provides invaluable insights into a building's energy usage and is essential for achieving decarbonisation goals. Let's delve into what EUI is and why it plays such a crucial role.

The ripple effect of ESG on the future of our buildings

The Emerging Trends Europe survey showed that 9 in 10 commercial property investors believe running an environmentally and socially sustainable business is the most crucial factor for a successful organisational transformation within the real estate industry by 2050.