This time next year, the standards governing the environmental performance of school and university buildings will be much tougher. An expert panel hosted by Ridge unpacked the implications for education projects.

Tomorrow’s education buildings will be very different to today’s, and we are on the cusp of a pivotal time for their design, construction and operation. Over the next year, the regulatory landscape will be reshaped, with a whole host of new standards intended to radically improve the sector’s environmental performance.  

To unpack what all of this will actually mean for education projects, Ridge hosted an expert panel discussion in our Manchester office, one of a number of Education Estates network gatherings held simultaneously in cities across England.  

Ridge Sustainability Partner Phil Kelly was joined by Poppy Parsons, Head of Low Carbon Construction at contractor Galliford Try, and Alison Fazakerley, Manchester Metropolitan University’s Assistant Director Campus Development. Our chair was Alice Parker, Architecture and Education Lead at Ridge.  

Here are their key takeaways.  

Education building standards are ramping up  

This time next year, education buildings will have to comply with a much tougher set of standards, said Phil. These will include upgrades to Building Regulations Part L, on the conservation of energy and power, the new Net Zero Carbon Building Standard (the Standard), BREEAM version 7, and the Department for Education’s Construction Framework 25 (CF25).  

The most significant change is that under the Standard, projects will be judged on their “whole-life” carbon emissions in a combined manner for the first time – that is, both the operational carbon emitted through their energy consumption, and the embodied carbon in their materials and construction.  

As embodied carbon can make up over half of a building’s total lifecycle emissions, and the majority of this is in its structure and foundations, this should mean that it’s easier to meet the targets by retrofitting an existing building than constructing a new one from scratch.  

Evolving standards will also continue to incentivise the shift from gas to electricity: “If current regulations are already pushing all-electric buildings, it’s going to be close to impossible to choose fossil fuels and still pass under the new legislation,” said Phil.  

How will tougher Building Regulations affect education projects?  

Building Regulations are the minimum standards that projects must legally adhere to, and the ratcheting up of Part L will mainly push up the lowest performers. The DfE guidelines already exceed this, and many education projects are required to achieve a BREEAM certification too. “We’ve been exceeding the minimum standard for quite some time for the majority of our public sector clients,” said Poppy.  

Similarly, Manchester Metropolitan University is working towards its own, much more ambitious target of being Net Zero by 2038, and is already exploring alternatives to fossil fuels on several new buildings. Alison did foresee two potential challenges, however.  

First, balancing tighter fabric performance targets with the aesthetic push to make universities more open and welcoming: “Where we expect challenge is in reducing solar glare and U-values, as glazing is important to wellbeing and also helps to invite people into our space.”  

Second, and more significantly, whether new electric heating and cooling technologies are sufficiently developed to meet the university’s needs. “This should be a huge area of concern for everyone. Should we plan for backup systems, and if so what are they? Do we have to design new infrastructure so that we can plug in another system if required? Estate strategies, particularly for university sites, are going to be very, very different to the ones we’ve seen in the past.”  

Are all-electric technologies ready?  

This is based on real-life experience and the university’s own research: its pioneering all-electric newbuild, the SODA Building, is fitted with air source heat pumps for space heating, and water source heat pumps for hot water. While championing energy efficient technologies, the building has a back-up gas system to ensure consistency in running. Manchester Met is also generating renewable energy on its Birley campus, distributed to buildings by an on-site energy centre. “Again, it’s in the early stages of delivery but we are seeing differences between the suggested design data and our delivery data.” 

Phil pointed out that there is very limited performance data across the board, due to the pace of change. The 2025 update to the Building Regulations will not be as radical as the last, which reversed the incentive for gas versus electricity overnight. But it does come hot on its heels – the previous Part L only came into force in April 2022, and facilities using electric systems may not have been operating very long. “A school could go from planning to operation in two years, but higher education facilities and more complex buildings can take a lot longer. So we haven’t got enough data yet to feedback on what the impact has been.”  

Will Net Zero and embodied carbon targets shift the focus from ambitious newbuilds to making do with existing structures?  

It’s complicated, agreed the panel. “The issue with refurbishments is that if delivered in a piecemeal fashion you can end up with a more expensive long-term maintenance need,” said Alison. “As a university, we’re focused on research and we want to be at the forefront of sustainability, so we wouldn’t be pushed towards more simplistic schemes unless appropriate for the institution.”  

Neither are they necessarily more efficient, she added. A retained concrete frame might need to be strengthened with carbon-intensive materials. Or slab-to-slab heights may not be high enough to use plenums for efficient air distribution, increasing energy costs and operational carbon. “So the benefit of reducing embodied carbon can be taken away in another area of the design.”  

This is reflected in the fact that the embodied carbon intensity target for education retrofits under the Standard is only 25% lower than for newbuilds, said Poppy, who was on one of the working groups to develop it. A building’s structure and foundations are estimated to contain approximately 40% of its embodied carbon, so retaining these should theoretically lead to much bigger savings. But retrofits are always much harder in reality: “Nothing ever fits exactly how you expect, you uncover things that weren’t on the drawings, and you can’t always do things in the most efficient way. That needs to be acknowledged for embodied carbon in the same way that it is for operational carbon. These targets are intended to make sure that we don’t effectively price out more complex refurbishments, in a carbon sense.” 

This is especially relevant for the education estate, she added, which spans many different eras. “We’ve still got our beautiful red brick late Victorian buildings, and nobody wants those to disappear. So we have to be cognizant of the fact that we can’t hold them up to the same standard as a brand-new Passivhaus building, for example.”  

How can we make sure new buildings keep performing as expected?  

The Standard was developed to combat greenwash by providing an agreed industry definition for Net Zero – only buildings that are actually designed to the standard should be called “Net Zero”. But it goes further than that, said Phil: the Net Zero label is only awarded after occupation, on submission of a year’s worth of energy data. “It doesn’t matter how much analysis you do at design stage or the promises you make about how it will be operated. You can only get the badge after you’ve proved it.”  

This is going to mean training building users – not just estates teams, but teachers and students too – how to operate unfamiliar systems, said Poppy. “We’ve developed the capability in-house to monitor in-use performance and can provide analysis and advice, but we can’t make a building perform if it’s not used correctly. Clients and their users need understand their assets in order to make the most of them.”  

For example, she added, if a room feels warm, many people’s first instinct might be to open the window. “But if it’s during a heatwave and it’s 30°C outside, that’s going to make things worse. Any passive or active cooling systems will become overworked trying to compensate for the extra heat.”  

Beyond the initial training at handover, she thinks there should be client check-ins should be part of seasonal commissioning too: “We put all this energy and effort into designing and constructing buildings, we need to put the same amount into operating them.”  

The performance gap is a perennial topic in sustainable design and construction, and it will become more urgent scrutiny extends to actual consumption, said Alice. She concluded the discussion by observing that legislation tends to take a one-size-fits-all approach: “Whether it be a newbuild or a refurbishment, that will be a major challenge for the education estate.” 

As the sector grapples with the uncertainty that new standards bring, what is clear is that collaboration, across disciplines and project teams, will be key to successful delivery.  

The panel: 

Chaired by Alice Parker: Architectural Education Lead, Ridge AliceParker@ridge.co.uk 

Phil Kelly: Partner in the Sustainability team at Ridge. Working closely with all disciplines, Phil brings an expert focus to Sustainability, Net Zero and Circularity philkelly@ridge.co.uk

Poppy Parsons: Head of Low Carbon Construction, Galliford Try poppy.parsons@gallifordtry.co.uk 

Alison Fazakerley: Assistant Director Campus Development, Manchester Metropolitan University a.fazakerley@mmu.ac.uk 

A team from Ridge will be attending Education Estates in Manchester on 14 and 15 October. Come and meet them on Stand 532.