This article shares insights from an episode of our Forming the Future podcast. To hear the full discussion about sustainable construction at scale, you can listen to the full episode.
The idea of sustainable homes might conjure up either space-age or organic imagery for the general population. But Mike Leonard sees a different picture, as the CEO of the Building Alliance and Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University.
For him, future homes that support healthy lives and do less harm (and more good) for the planet will be made from the proven, durable products we use today, like masonry. He argues that sustainability is about resilience in buildings, communities and the economy, not just carbon emissions data.
In this article, we share Mike’s experience and perspective on building sustainable homes, from construction product lifespans to sustainable homes in practice.
The longevity of masonry
The brick manufacturing process creates a product that can last 150 years or more. But today’s environmental product declarations measure performance on just a 60-year basis. That significantly undervalues masonry’s sustainability across multiple dimensions, Mike explains, as we can, ‘[produce clay bricks] in the UK to this standard… with this ability to be low maintenance and not impact on the environment going forward.’
Many UK manufacturers will make their bricks from locally sourced clay, transporting it only short distances before it becomes part of long-lasting homes. Clay bricks also offer built-in resilience—their thermal mass helps protect against overheating, which is a growing concern as UK summers get hotter. And with low to no maintenance requirements, there’s also less lifetime environmental impact from operating carbon for clay brick homes. These are just a few of the many sustainable qualities of clay bricks.
The cost of short-term thinking
While the urgent push to decarbonise the construction industry is warranted, Mike warns against ‘offshoring carbon’ by importing products from fossil-fuel economies. He likened it to the replacement of UK-made gas boilers with electrified heat pumps from China. ‘You compare bricks made in the UK, using local raw materials, to the impacts of mass deforestation, for instance… and the carbon sink that those trees would create. There is no comparison,’ Mike emphasised.
At Birmingham City University’s Centre for Future Homes, which Mike heads up, they focus on three principles of resilience:
- Put the customer at the heart of the journey
- Provide data and insights to support evidence-based policy decisions
- Avoid unintended consequences (of short-term thinking)
‘We’re only custodians at a particular time in a very, very long journey, and decisions we take today have long-term impacts,’ Mike said. In Mike’s view, while carbon emissions should still be a priority for the industry, it can’t be the sum total of sustainability efforts in homebuilding.
Project 80: putting ideas into practice
Project 80 in Birmingham is a clear example of sustainable construction at scale, which Mike was involved with. The initiative built 12 masonry homes to the proposed Future Homes Standard, aiming for an 80% reduction in operational carbon. ‘I’ve been around building regulations for an awful long time, for a lot of changes… It always seemed a bit strange to me that we’d embark on big, big change… without actually understanding whether it worked or not or what the problems might be,’ mused Mike. This notion was the impetus for Project 80.
The project tested different airtightness levels and heating systems to improve energy performance. The results were impressive: the homes exceeded expectations for efficiency, and two years after residents moved in, the feedback was fantastic.
But perhaps the most important finding was behavioural. ‘Our estimation is that 50% of the challenge in moving to low-carbon homes resides with the way in which they’re operated*,”* Mike revealed. Educating homeowners to use systems effectively can create significant carbon savings, even in existing homes.
Forming the future
If you’d like to hear the full discussion with Mike, you can listen to the full episode of Forming the Future, the Michelmersh podcast. Looking to the future of your next project? We’re always on hand to offer inspiration and expertise—get in touch with our team today.
