UK ‘dangerously slow’ in tackling climate challenges, new analysis reveals

The UK’s built environment is “severely under-equipped” to adapt to the changing climate, according to new analysis.

The UK Green Building Council’s scorecard finds that on five out of seven critical climate resilience priorities, the government policies in its Third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) are “insufficient, flawed, or missing, placing millions of homes and buildings – and the lives of people occupying them – at serious risk of damage from climate-related disaster”.  

The scorecard analyses policies affecting both existing buildings and new-builds and their adaptation to the most serious climate risks including water scarcity, overheating, flooding, and coastal erosion, awarding each a rating of green (progress in line with UKGBC recommendations) amber (positive or partial but insufficient progress) or red (failing to deliver or actively hindering progress). 

None of the areas received a green rating, indicating that the UK built environment is “not sufficiently adapted to the present and future risks posed by any of the threats assessed by UKGBC”, said their findings.

The analysis says that “without a credible, robust, fully-funded retrofit programme, the government is failing to adapt buildings to much more frequent and severe overheating and address critical gaps in technical skills, industry delivery and public understanding of risks and mitigation”.

Syntegra MD Alan King said many retrofit measures and steps that can be implemented in new construction projects are not cost prohibitive and make sound business sense in the longer term.

The UKGBC also notes that measures in place currently to manage overheating “rely on mechanical ventilation and cooling, which fuels energy demand and puts the UK’s net zero goals in jeopardy”.

The UK lacks “consistent standards and certification relating to the full range of flood risk management” and “there is a lack of resources dedicated to driving public or shared infrastructure for critical adaptation solutions, such as nature-based flood strategies, at scale across the UK”, said the analysis document.

Alongside the policy gaps is “a catastrophic financial shortfall”, the UKGBC warned. 

The UK’s Climate Change Committee estimates that “a well-adapted UK will require nearly £700 billion of investment by 2030, yet with no dedicated government fund to address climate resilience and no clarity about how a range of complex, smaller initiatives will contribute, it appears that considerably less than half of the CCC’s total is currently committed”.

Hannah Giddings, head of resilience & nature at UKGBC, said: “Our analysis reveals dangerously slow progress on adapting the UK to the new normal of more extreme and frequent disasters caused by our rapidly changing climate. The vast majority of critical policies needed to face the most severe climate threats are stalled or delayed exactly when they should be expanding and accelerating. 

“While the government has delayed critical policies like Biodiversity Net Gain and shrunk its ambition on net zero, the financing gap for climate adaptation has stretched to a chasm of hundreds of billions needed to manage serious floods, heat waves, and storms that are becoming routinely more devastating every year.”

Syntegra’s Alan added: “It is becoming clearer by the day that urgent action needs to be taken to confront the climate crisis head on.

“The built environment is at the heart of the solution and there are a series of measures that can be put in place in the short, medium and longer term to counter some of the challenges.

“Policies need to provide businesses with clarity around their responsibilities and funding needs to be made available to fast track some of these necessary changes. Our industry needs to lead the way in adapting its business practices but it cannot solve all the problems single-handedly.”