map marker United Kingdom | 01 December 2025
Reading Time : 4 min

The UK is making progress in cutting emissions, but it’s not moving fast enough to meet its 2050 net zero target. As a large contributor to the UK’s carbon emissions, the built environment can help close that gap – if it rethinks how sustainability is approached. 

Based on a recent IStructE paper authored by our experts, this article explores how you can reframe sustainability as a project enhancer, driving behavioural change and embedding carbon-conscious thinking across every stage of a project. 

Unlocking decarbonisation opportunities at every stage

Research shows that industry reluctance can be down to psychology. Psychologist and economist, Per Espen Stoknes, has identified five inner defences to climate action: distance, doom, dissonance, denial and identity1. Below, we explore how each barrier can lead to inaction and what you can do to move past them. 

In-body image 1 (1)

1. Close the gap of distance 

For many, carbon can feel abstract and disconnected from everyday life. This is what Per Espen Stoknes calls the distance barrier: when climate change is perceived as a far-off issue, both in time and geography, it becomes harder to act on.

Climate change resonates more when it’s made personal. Local case studies can show how low-carbon buildings deliver real-world benefits and respond to everyday concerns, such as improved air quality, decreased energy costs and reduced noise through refurbishment.

Additionally, IStructE guidance states that if the average engineer reduces their designs by 20%, this can result in a saving of 200t annually2 – showing on a profession-level the impact that can be made in comparison to individual lifestyle choices. 

2. Shift the story from doom to possibility 

Catastrophe-laden climate messaging can trigger the doom barrier, making the problem feel too big to fix. That sense of helplessness leads to disengagement.  

Instead, you need to position sustainable building design as a commercial opportunity. When you link low-carbon choices to reduced stranded asset risk or lower material costs, you can move the focus from doom to competitive advantage. 

Some ideas involve: 

  • Showing how using less materials can translate into optimised costs when done without increasing labour
  • Highlighting how flexible design practices can mitigate stranded asset risk, allowing buildings to be adapted with lower carbon impacts as regulations and market preferences change
  • Introducing transitional and physical risks on project risk registers to ensure projects are designed and delivered in line with funding/clients' high-level strategies
     

3. Resolve the tension of dissonance by removing complexity 

People’s carbon-heavy habits are harmful but changing them can feel at odds with daily routines. That’s the dissonance barrier: when values and behaviours clash, action stalls. Make low-carbon choices easy to adopt, embedding them into project delivery, so they feel like the natural next step. 

Some solutions include: 

  • Using steel reuse tools and parametric modelling solutions like DAISY to inform data-driven low-carbon designs and incorporating carbon into decision-making from the early stages of a project.
  • Reviewing designs to eliminate or reduce carbon wherever possible, such as through installing CLT-Steel Composite Floor Systems and free cooling solutions.
  • Showing how lower carbon solutions can be incorporated with only a minor increase in costs. Our recent evidence-based study for the City of Westminster showed typical new projects could cut embodied carbon by 22-26% with only a 2-4% cost increase.
In-body image 2 (1)

4. Break through denial by celebrating progress 

The denial barrier involves ignoring or avoiding acknowledging carbon considerations due to complexity or perceived irrelevance. You can change this thinking by integrating carbon tracking into standard design and delivery processes, with progress being regularly reported on. 

For example, you can set mandatory minimum requirements for carbon management for projects, with regular reporting to show progress. At an organisation level, an internal awards initiative could be established to recognise innovation, projects and people who are driving decarbonisation across projects to further embed carbon-conscious thinking. 

5. Make decarbonisation part of your corporate identity 

The identity barrier kicks in when new ideas challenge long-held norms. In the built environment, low-carbon design can feel like a threat to traditional practices, especially when carbon is seen as a constraint.

To shift this narrative, you need to foster a culture where decarbonisation and sustainability is embraced as a mark of industry leadership. This could include: 

  • Becoming a member of industry initiatives like the UK Green Building Council, UK Net Zet Carbon Buildings Standard or other relevant organisations to stay up-to-date with best decarbonisation practices
  • Attending decarbonisation events to share key learnings from projects and gain insight into what others are doing across the industry


To reach net zero by 2050, the UK must rethink how it designs and delivers buildings. Between 2020 and 2025, WSP in the UK and Ireland achieved a 29% reduction in embodied carbon intensity of structural designs, in accordance with A1-A5 carbon measurement. By repositioning sustainability as a source of value and tackling the psychological barriers that slow progress, you can unlock commercial gains, build resilience and make low-carbon practices the norm. 

References

1. https://www.ted.com/talks/per_espen_stoknes_how_to_transform_apocalypse_fatigue_into_action_on_global_warming/footnotes/transcript

2. IStructE How to Calculate Embodied Carbon

Authors

David Leversha
David Leversha
Director, Net Zero Lead, Property and Buildings
United Kingdom
Diego Padilla-Philipps
Diego Padilla Philipps
Director, Decarbonisation and Innovation, Property and Buildings
United Kingdom
Emma Francois
Emma Francois
Associate Director, Decarbonisation, Property and Buildings
United Kingdom
Show more Show less

All calculations have utilised WSP’s in-house carbon calculator. Since the 2024 review, the calculator has been updated to reflect the second edition of the RICS Professional Standard.

Certain information contained in this article is forward-looking, including, without limitation, WSP’s long-term sustainability ambitions and targets which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties as further detailed in the ‘Risk Factors’ section of WSP’s most recent annual management’s discussion and analysis, which is available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and which section is incorporated herein by reference and are based on several assumptions as further described in the ‘Forward-Looking Statements’ section of WSP’s latest Global Sustainability Report, which give rise to the possibility that actual results or events could differ materially from the expectations expressed in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this article are made as of September 2025 and WSP does not assume any obligation to publicly update or to revise any forward-looking statements made in this article or otherwise, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise except as required under applicable securities laws. 

Simplifying the pathway to net zero

From strategy to site, we help you cut carbon, build resilience and lead the shift to a low-carbon future. 

Learn more