Decarbonising the built environment – from targets to delivery

Buildings sit at the heart of every city’s net zero challenge – and also at the heart of its budgets, service delivery and social outcomes. 

This session focuses on how cities and local authorities can move from high-level decarbonisation strategies to practical, investable programmes across public-owned buildings and the wider urban landscape. 

It will explore retrofit at scale, low-carbon new development, and the role of standards, planning and procurement in shifting markets. The discussion will be grounded in the realities of local government – ageing assets, constrained capital and complex ownership – and will look at how data, digital tools and performance tracking can support better decisions, stronger business cases and more equitable outcomes. 

Key talking points: 

• Prioritising retrofit across public buildings, social housing and commercial stock to deliver the biggest carbon and cost savings 
• Using data, building passports and portfolio approaches to plan and sequence investment at scale 
• Aligning planning policy, building standards and procurement with net zero delivery rather than just ambition 
• Leveraging digital tools, monitoring and modelling to track performance and de-risk investment decisions.