Climate Action

Our goal is to play an active role in tackling the global climate emergency by creating low carbon, resilient homes.

Climate action is one of ten priorities in Our Vision 2030, our ambitious business strategy for the next decade. Read more about our goal to play an active role in tackling the global climate emergency by creating low carbon, resilient homes here.

• Berkeley Group commits to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 50% by FY2030 from a FY2019 base year.
• Berkeley Group also commits to reduce scope 3 purchased goods and services and use of sold products GHG emissions 40% per square foot of legally completed floor area over the same timeframe. 

These targets represent an ambitious step forward in our approach to tackling climate change and have been calculated to ensure that we play our part in limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Our climate action programme includes five key action areas, which are driving progress towards our science-based targets and ensuring that our homes, places and business operations are resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Our integrated climate action programme targets the most carbon intensive activities throughout our full supply chain, identifying mitigations and adaption solutions. They chart a course to Berkeley becoming a net zero carbon business by 2040.

	Low Carbon Homes
Since 2018 we have been working to reduce the in-use lifetime carbon emissions of ours homes. We will ensure that all of our homes are enables to be low carbon by 2030 and are now using our validated science-based targets to reduce the in-use lifetime carbon emissions of our homes, focusing on the efficiency of the building fabric and appropriate low carbon technologies. We will continue to build on this work by incorporating the right low carbon technologies into our homes including heat pumps and photovoltaics. We will also showcase how advanced manufacture and the use of modern technologies can help us to meet higher targets. We also continue to prioritise clean energy tarrifs and design well-connected, walkable neighbourhoods with local amenities, sustainable transport links and infrastructure
	Climate Change Resilience
We are making our homes and places resilient to the impact of climate change. We will continue to incorporate adaptation measures in the homes we build, using our thermal comfort risk assessment tool developed in 2017 to reduce the risk of overheating during design, construction and occupation. Each new site has specific adaptations, such as ventilation systems and passive balcony shading. In addition to the homes we build, the biodiverse landscapes that we create are also purposefully designed to be resilient to extreme weather, including flooding and drought. We are futureproofing both our business and our sites by scenario planning and we are aligned with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) requirements. By 2023 we will undertake detailed modelling of the expected impact of climate change on our operations and begin to take action to mitigate the risks.
	Embodied Carbon
We recognise that the majority of our carbon impact comes from the materials and services that we use to construct the homes. Understanding and then reducing the carbon content of the materials and services we use is a priority for us. First we minimise embodied carbon through the design of our new homes and places, and then we collaborate with our supply chain to procure lower carbon products. We've begun to set benchmarks by assessing the embodied carbon on ten of our sites, identifying high impact materials and services. By 2025 we will assess the embodied carbon on all of our sites, and set reduction targets.
	Low Carbon Construction Sites
We've maintained carbon neutral business operations since 2017 and will go further, to halve emissions across our direct operations by 2030 using our verified science-based targets. We're introducing new ways of cutting emissions across our sites, such as increasing use of biodiesel in place of traditional gas oil during construction and being an early adopter of electric and hybrid machinery. We will also demonstrate how increasing use of off-site manufacture can help us to reduce the carbon impact of the overall construction process.
	Balancing Our Impacts
Our first priority is to reduce our emissions, but until we complete this transition we will continue to balance our impacts by investing in projects and partnerships that actively remove carbon from the atmosphere, or that help to produce zero carbon energy. We will maintain carbon neutral direct business operations (scopes 1 & 2) through purchasing verified carbon offsets, as well as investigating opportunities to deliver or support nature based carbon capture and renewable energy initiatives. We are proud to be one of the five founding partners to the UK Green Building Council's Advancing Net Zero programme, which is helping to lead and co-ordinate climate action across the UK built environment sector.