Delivering business resilience and sustainability through PAS2080

PAS 2080, co-authored by Mott MacDonald, is the global standard for carbon management within infrastructure, and provides a framework for managing whole life carbon across all sectors. It builds on the opportunities identified in the Infrastructure Carbon Review authored by Mott MacDonald.

The PAS framework describes how a carbon management process must be developed that is embedded into the infrastructure delivery process. To make carbon reduction part of normal delivery it is essential for an organisation to set targets and a baseline and engage with the value chain early, communicating ideas.

Developing a baseline is an essential part of this carbon management process as it provides an organisation with insight about their current emissions for target setting and identifies key hotspot areas to focus optimisation efforts on. The baseline can be estimated based on historical data, design standards and ‘business as usual’ emissions data, meaning it’s very much a line in the sand at this point and can be improved upon as the quality of data improves. Assumptions made, of which there will initially be many, should be captured to allow designers to review and amend them as infrastructure delivery progresses.

This is particularly relevant at the concept design stage where calculating emissions inherently includes assumptions but gives an idea of where current hotspots are before they are locked into the design. This should then lead to more detailed assessments further down the line, having been influenced by the high-level optioneering exercises.

After determining the baseline, targets can be set. As with all targets they should be specific, measurable and relate to the outcome of lowering emissions. At this point it’s understandable there may not yet be a specific plan to meet them but having a vision for the future will encourage players involved in the infrastructure delivery chain to deviate from business as usual. Development against the baseline needs to be monitored as the project progresses and reviewed at different design stage-gates.

Moata Carbon Portal was developed in house by Mott MacDonald to enable our designers to deliver low carbon solutions by modelling the operational and capital carbon of BIM designed assets. It is PAS2080 certified, with libraries of asset level carbon data as well as material level data allowing designers to make more detailed assessments. Designs developed in the portal can be handed over to the client for ongoing ownership enabling emissions to be rapidly recalculated as the project progresses.

Most importantly, in order for an organisation to systematically manage whole life carbon, leadership is required at all levels and the right governance has to be in place to be able to create a culture of challenge.

Infrastructure has a critical role to play in meeting net zero in 2050 and beyond. PAS2080 provides a framework which presents best practice carbon management within infrastructure, which we envision will be fundamental in achieving our national aims. Achieving net zero is a considerable challenge and will require alignment across the value chain. Embedding carbon into decision making across organisations and through the infrastructure delivery stages is key, as is quantifying whole life carbon emissions regularly to support decision making and influence behaviours up and down the value chain.