Solution trends driving the sustainable transformation of the built environment

Buildings are a crucial area of opportunity when it comes to environmental and social sustainability, as reflected at COP29 last year and in the CCC Progress Report. As more stories flood the news about the impacts of climate change being felt all over the world, there is also a huge amount of innovation happening to try and address this in the built environment. The UK Green Building Council has officially launched its annual Trends Report which looks at some of the trends in sustainable solutions observed over the course of 2024.
This article gives a flavour, but the full list of trends and associated solutions can be found here.
Resilience and adaptation funding and technology
Billions of people from across the world were effected by extreme weather events in 2024, and in the UK, 1 in 4 properties could be at risk of flooding by 2050. It is therefore critical that we increase the resilience of our built environment to climate hazards, to protect lives and support economic stability. In spring 2025, UKGBC will launch the UK Climate Resilience Roadmap for the built environment to drive understanding and consensus around critical climate resilience actions and policies. A key focus for 2025 will be finding innovative mechanisms to unlock funding for resilience projects and associated nature-based solutions.
Innovation in this area includes crowdfunding platforms for nature and resilience projects, climate risk identification platforms, smart sensors, smart irrigation systems and parametric insurance that can automatically respond to extreme weather events.
Net Zero Buildings and Whole Life Carbon
It is critical we continue our efforts to mitigate climate change as 2024 was the first calendar year to pass 1.5°C. Last year saw the launch of the landmark UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard – a collaborative, industry-led initiative to set science-led limits and targets for different kinds of buildings to be defined as net zero, aligned to our carbon and energy budgets. It also sets out all the requirements and approaches to verify these have been achieved. The Government’s Net Zero Building Strategy, which is due out after the completion of the spending review process, will likely also drive action in this area.
Various digital solutions exist to support with achieving net zero carbon buildings, including reducing whole life carbon. Examples include using AI to automate the generation of EPDs for products and materials, platforms to help with low carbon material selection, using generative design to optimise building design to minimise embodied carbon and various whole life carbon design and calculation tools.

Renewable energy systems
As well as bringing down energy demand in buildings, it is critical we also think about renewable energy generation, which may be through generating and exporting renewable electricity on site or through procurement. Our Renewable Energy Procurement Guidance seeks to provide clarity on best practice and has begun to be applied, with large built environment organisations requesting energy that meets the three principles: Renewable, Additionality and Time-matched.
Buildings are becoming an increasingly active part of the electricity system, and innovators are addressing this in various ways. This ranges from demand management and load shifting so buildings can avoid drawing energy during peak times, through to helping identify suitable buildings for renewable energy and aggregating purchasing to achieve economies of scale. There are also many solutions emerging for peer-to-peer trading and the creation of virtual power plants.
Addressing supply chain emissions is another area we expect to receive greater attention, as organisations seek to address their scope 3. UKGBC has therefore recently launched a new workstream on Supply Chain Decarbonisation to enable cross-sector collaboration on this topic. We expect organisations to scale up supply chain engagement initiatives to improve data quality and availability and build a better understanding of requirements. Organisations should also drive for greater procurement of low carbon materials.
Innovation in this space include digital platforms to encourage data sharing, visualisation and optimisation of supply chains, as well as innovative ways to track materials throughout supply chains, including RFID tags and Internet of Things devices.

Reuse hubs and material passports
The concept of the circular economy in the built environment has been becoming more widely researched and understood in recent years and the UK Government has now officially launched its Circular Economy Taskforce. UKGBC expects this trend to continue into 2025 with the development of more established secondary material marketplaces, through brokerage, marketplace and take-back-scheme models. Furthermore, material passports have continued to gain traction, with various platforms emerging and the European Commission looking into regulation regarding a Digital Product Passport for the construction sector. Solutions also exist which enable tech-enabled pre-demolition audits to build understand of material availability and facilitate reuse.
Place-based approaches and community co-design
There are growing calls for the built environment to move beyond a form of sustainability that only minimises negative impacts, towards having an actively positive, regenerative impact on people and planet. This increases the importance of taking a place-based approach to design and development that fosters and enables community co-design. UKGBC’s new Regenerative Places Programme is responding to this, exploring how local retrofit strategies can be leveraged to deliver broader regenerative benefits to communities. Coupled with the Government’s plan for devolution there will likely be greater emphasis placed on action and engagement at the local level.
Innovative technologies are also being developed and deployed to support with this to enable data to be collected and presented in more engaging ways, for example using gamification or VR. Some innovators are also exploring decentralised modern methods of construction approaches, which can provide local jobs and rapid manufacture of homes in local areas.

Overall, in 2025 we hope to see increased adoption of sustainable solutions in the built environment, which UKGBC will be seeking to support through our Scaling Sustainable Solutions for the Built Environment initiative. This will also require greater upskilling, collaboration, transparency and a holistic approach to sustainability, considering the co-benefits and negative externalities of solutions and projects across the industry.
This article summarises a some of the sustainable solution trends, but the full list alongside associate solutions can be found here.
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