Why Net Zero Hinges on Data

The construction industry has a monumental task on its hands to decarbonise and meet the ambitious targets of governments, companies, and projects. Here, Adam Robinson, Senior Sustainability Manager at Sir Robert McAlpine, explains why robust data is essential if the construction industry is to achieve it sustainability targets.

Net zero targets, science-based commitments, and client demands on carbon have all dramatically increased in recent years. But those ambitions need to be backed up by a detailed understanding of the data that underpins them. And producing that data is tough when supply chains are long, there are varying levels of understanding, and information is fragmented or incomplete.

The path to credible carbon reduction must start with knowing, accurately and consistently, where emissions come from across all operations. That requires data, and it needs to be granular, structured, and comparable.

The Information Scramble

Construction generates enormous amounts of information: bills of quantities, delivery tickets, invoices, BIM models, endless spreadsheets. The challenge is in getting the relevant data and being able to use it effectively. Supply chain data lives in dozens of disconnected systems, in different formats, with differing levels of quality and completeness. This can result in a high degree of uncertainty - unvalidated figures, estimates, generic emission factors, differing methodologies.

At Sir Robert McAlpine we have implemented a verified PAS 2080 carbon management system to ensure that we have an embedded approach to managing carbon through the lifecycle of all our projects. We also have our company footprint independently verified in accordance with ISO 14064:2018, ensuring that our methodology is appropriately robust. Applying such standards provides us with structure and consistency and ensures a focus on continuous improvement.

What Good Carbon Data Actually Looks Like

In construction, building a credible carbon data foundation means addressing several challenges:

• Granularity. Totalled figures are not enough. Without granularity, a company can report a number but can't act on it, because there isn't enough detail to know why or when something significant occurred.

   
  

• Primary data over proxy data. Generic emission factors have a place, especially early on when specifics aren't yet known. But as procurement decisions firm up, generic factors should be progressively replaced by supplier-specific Environmental Product Declarations and primary data. A company that never moves past industry averages will never be able to demonstrate that its own choices — its construction methods, its suppliers, its specifications — are actually reducing emissions.

  
  

• Consistency. A single project's carbon footprint is only useful in isolation. The real value comes from comparing projects, tracking trends over time, and identifying which interventions positively impact performance. That requires the comparable data structures, boundaries, and calculation methodologies.

  
  

• Auditability. As scrutiny increases, companies need to be able to show their working: where a figure came from, what assumptions were made, and how confident they should be in it. This is as much a data governance challenge as a sustainability one.

  
  

At Sir Robert McAlpine, we have an established methodology for our footprint and alongside this, a Data Improvement Roadmap for each emissions source. This sets out actions to identify hotspots, improve data quality, and reduce the level of uncertainty. Using the roadmap, we are continuing to refine and mature our methodology, limitations and assumptions. We are also continually working to reduce the effort required to compile the data so that we can spend more time on the initiatives to reduce emissions.

Why the Bar is Raising

The level of scrutiny of carbon figures is increasing for several reasons:

• Regulation is tightening. Embodied carbon reporting requirements are moving fast. When carbon data becomes a point of compliance, the level of understanding and detail must improve.

  
  

• Clients are asking more demanding questions. Developers and asset owners increasingly want project-specific carbon figures, not industry averages, because they have their own aspirations, and need that data for their own disclosures further up the value chain.

  
  

• Finance is starting to follow it. Green loans, sustainability-linked bonds, and ESG-weighted procurement scoring are increasingly tied to verifiable carbon performance.

  
  

In this environment, a carbon figure that can't be traced back to its underlying data — what was used, how much, from where, calculated with what factor — is a liability rather than an asset.

We use the Normative platform for calculating our company footprint. The platform enables each datapoint to be analysed and see the steps in taking the inputted data through to the associated emissions, with the detail behind each conversion. This transparency is extremely valuable in demonstrating the quality of our data and the granularity enables us to pinpoint challenges and successes.

The Strategic Case

It's not glamorous and it's tempting to treat all of this as a reporting burden. But that would be a mistake, because the same data infrastructure that supports credible measurement also supports better decisions.

A company with granular, reliable carbon data can answer questions that matter: which suppliers offer genuinely lower-carbon materials at a price that still works, which construction methods reduce both emissions and cost through material efficiency, which projects are outliers and why. Carbon data, done properly, becomes operational intelligence. Carbon data, done poorly, generates more questions than answers.

The built environment cannot be decarbonised by targets alone. It will be decarbonised by the thousands of small, measurable, data-backed decisions made on every project, by every team, every day. Getting the data right isn't the unglamorous pre-requisite to climate action in construction — it is the foundation for delivering change.