Housing currently contributes 20% of the UK’s climate emissions. We want to help our clients achieve net zero by ratcheting up building performance.

We are collaborating with three other architectural practices – HTA Design, Pollard Thomas Edwards and PRP Architects – to enhance our delivery of design and other services to our housing clients whilst supporting them in the process of decarbonising their new build and retrofit programmes and improving social value.

Central to our proposal is an ambition to work with clients to create an effective feedback loop which will test how well we have met identified targets. We want to create a structure that enables data and learning to be shared between the four practices, participating clients and professional organisations, as well as monitor our progress to meet the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge.

• Paper I covers the context for our work and proposes a framework for clients and consultants to follow.
• The companion, Paper II, proposes a social research based questionnaire as well as professional and technical processes for post-occupancy evaluation.

On every project we want to achieve a programme of stretching but achievable and measurable targets for environmental sustainability, social value and wellbeing. We have focused on the decade leading up to 2030, on the premise that improvements need to start now and deliver significant progress soon, if we are to achieve net zero in the final two decades before the 2050 deadline.