This podcast features Lewis Barlow, ICE trustee for carbon and climate, in conversation with Mark Hansford, the institution’s director of engineering knowledge, about the PAS 2080 standard. 

The ICE has been a driving force behind this publicly available specification for carbon management in buildings and infrastructure. The institution hopes that PAS 2080 will become the industry-wide decarbonisation methodology – and soon, if nations are to stand a chance of hitting their net zero targets. 

The ICE is therefore heartened to see that Scotland’s latest national planning guidance strongly encourages the use of PAS 2080. This is the first time that the policies of a national government (as opposed to a department) have explicitly endorsed the standard. Although Holyrood hasn’t made PAS 2080 compliance mandatory, it’s a breakthrough nonetheless, according to Barlow. 

In a wide-ranging interview, he recommends ways in which the civil engineering profession can accelerate the standard’s adoption throughout the built environment sector, suggesting how to surmount some of the main barriers to its uptake.