Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

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The post Consultation Response: National Planning Policy Framework 2025 appeared first on UKGBC.

Policy and Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

Learn more

The post Construction Products Reform Consultation Response appeared first on UKGBC.

Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

Learn more

The post Embodied Carbon Briefing appeared first on UKGBC.

The world is on track for a catastrophic 2.7C of global heating by the end of the century. We have just passed 1.5C for the first time. How clear are you on what this means for you as a leader, for how your business is positioned, and for the system-level shifts needed in the built environment?

Capturing insights and knowledge from UKGBC’s sustainability leadership programmes, Leading Sustainability is a four-week short-course that conveys the key concepts and take-aways required to deepen your understanding, expand thinking, and drive behaviour change at individual, organisational, and system level. It is designed to empower participants to lead progress, whatever their job title.

This course is perfect for busy leaders who want to get started in their role as a leader for sustainability, or for those already more well-versed leaders in need of a boost of inspiration and to refine their skills alongside a cohort of passionate peers.

The course is run annually by UKGBC for a mixed cohort from different organisations. Or it can be run in a tailored format for a cohort all from one organisation, at any time.

Format & Content

Leading Sustainability content is delivered virtually over four weeks via three methods to suit all learning styles, enable peer discussion, activate thinking, and inspire you as you manage your busy jobs:

1. Sustainability Leadership Companion

An easily accessible written guide addressing the case for action, leaders’ purpose and key attributes, innovation, storytelling, systems change, and more. It delves into what’s needed at organisational level, giving practical examples and cases at project and personal leadership level. It is designed to:

Participants will also be directed to various resources from UKGBC’s learning library and granted access to our Sustainability Essentials email course in order to upskill on key sustainability topics within the built environment in their own time.

2. Leading Sustainability WhatsApp course

Over four weeks, this digital course explores core sustainability leadership concepts through compact and manageable learning insights, each summarised with practical actions and next-step suggestions. Learnings are deployed through WhatsApp messages, with a 1-2 hour per week time commitment for reading and reflection, and UKGBC facilitators helping guide participants to share thoughts and experiences. It is designed to:

1) Provide light touch nuggets of learning for busy leaders
2) Inspire and re-energise, reassure and equip those that use it with activities to explore their own positioning to the topics covered.
3) Act as an aide memoire – things to think about, triggers for acting differently, practical tips

The course covers key content including analysis of key leadership behaviours, an exploration of personal and organisational purpose, storytelling, resilience, and organisational- and system-level change.

3. Online and face-to-face* group discussion and facilitated learning

The course offers three online* workshops with opportunities for delegates to meet each other and the course facilitators. The conversations bring together learnings and reflections from the course to:

* Workshops can be run face-to-face if preferred, when run in bespoke format for one organisation

When & Where

• Our 2025 Leading Sustainability course was run May-June and is now complete. The course runs for 4 weeks fully online.
• Please express an interest in taking part in Leading Sustainability 2026 by emailing leaders@ukgbc.org.
• If you would like to enquire about running Leading Sustainability in a tailored fashion within your organisation, please contact leaders@ukgbc.org.

Who Should Take Part

Every one of us has the potential to act as a leader within our spheres of influence, regardless of position or job title. This course will support you think through your own agency and help build your confidence in leading for sustainability. It is open to sustainability and non-sustainability professionals, with some self-directed sustainability literacy and knowledge included. Leading Sustainability may particularly benefit those in their mid-level career stages, but will benefit anyone who is: 

Enquire & Costs

Our 2025 Leading Sustainability course has now elapsed.

If you would like to register your interest in taking part in the future, or would like to enquire about the cost of running Leading Sustainability in a tailored / bespoke fashion within your organisation please contact leaders@ukgbc.org.

The post Leading Sustainability appeared first on UKGBC.

It might sound cliched, however it has genuinely accelerated my business change journey. It provided the impetus and the headspace to recognise the importance and priority to ‘get it done’. It has broadened my leadership skills by building on my ability to tell a story and appeal to the emotional/’feeling’ argument.

Applications will shortly open for the 2025 Change Accelerator cohort. See below for details and link for registering interest. 

Change Accelerator is a three-month programme aimed at middle to senior level business leaders (10 – 15 years’ experience) working in the built environment, with real influence over business strategy and a remit for change. 

Running throughout Autumn 2025, the course facilitates a systemic shift in the sustainability of the built environment. By the end of the programme, participants will have gained a fresh perspective and be connected to a network of peers who will support them in the delivery of bold and sustainable outcomes at their own organisations. 

The Change Accelerator objectives are to: 

1. Expose participants to cutting edge leadership insights, delivered through a mix of learning techniques and peer-to-peer dialogue. 
2. Redefine participants’ own leadership purpose and increase understanding of how to influence systems and hone storytelling techniques to maximize influence and deliver transformational change at an organisational level. 
3. Apply a new frame of thinking to existing challenges, leveraging shared insights and developing a strategy to positively achieve sectoral change. 

The Change Accelerator programme consists of the following key components: 

1. Purpose: Kick-off call:30th September (virtual). Retreat: 1st-2nd October (In-person, TBC)
2. Storytelling: Half day morning workshop: 9th October (virtual).
3. Systems and report out: Systems webinar: 5th November (virtual).
4. Report out: 26th-27th November (London).

Participants work on their own business change which they define through the programme. The learning between sessions is estimated as 2 days in total. 

As with our other leadership programmes, applications for Change Accelerator are highly competitive, and we accept a maximum of two applicants from each organisation. 

If you have any further questions, please contact  Elfrida Hamilton-Russell. 

Cost 

The cost per person for the full programme is as follows.  

• UKGBC members: £3945* 

(Keystone members receive a 15% discount) 

• Non-members: £5489* 

*Discounts and bursary places available for public sector, SME and not-for-profit organisations. Please  contact us  for more information. 

Download the Prospectus and the Application Form

The post Change Accelerator 2025 appeared first on UKGBC.

In our response to the question we argue for a clearer definition of Grey Belt land to avoid public backlash, make the case for ensuring nature is protected and biodiversity decline reversed, and encourage caution to avoid high-carbon urban sprawl and developments with no links to existing infrastructure and services.

Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

Learn more

The post UKGBC response to Grey Belt inquiry appeared first on UKGBC.

For the analysis, we have tracked every relevant government announcement, decision and legislative step, as well as the Labour Party’s manifesto commitments. We have compared these to the policy platform that UKGBC set out ahead of the election calling for decisive action in five areas:

Making home upgrades an easy choice

Making new developments high quality, well-connected and green

Protecting our communities from climate risks

Renewing our town centres

Climate leadership

Policy and Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

Learn more

The post 100 Days of Labour Government Progress Report appeared first on UKGBC.

We welcome this NPPF consultation and congratulate the Government for bringing it forward so quickly after so much delay. Updating the planning system is urgent. It provides a crucial opportunity to ensure all planning strategies and decisions contribute towards, not pull against, the Government’s ambitions and legal obligations to achieve a zero-carbon future, protect households, communities, businesses and the wider economy from climate impacts and restore nature. In this context, the NPPF proposals including a new ‘Grey Belt’ designation and the reinstatement of a five-year housing land supply requirement will need to go much further to reflect the Government’s own stated urgency and commitment to decarbonise the economy, restore nature and deliver energy security and climate resilience. 

In this response, drawn from wide consultation with our members, we advocate for a clear legal alignment with the Climate Change and Environment Acts in the forthcoming Planning Bill and much stronger new building standards to put the country on track for success. 

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

The post Consultation Response: National Planning Policy Framework appeared first on UKGBC.

This budget submission welcomes Labour’s manifesto commitment to home upgrades backed by a £13.2bn investment and asks that Treasury confirms the scale of investment in the existing suite of retrofit schemes at this year’s Autumn Budget so that industry can begin to invest, recruit and skill up for delivery on a larger scale. In tandem with this, we propose several revenue-neutral mechanisms to mobilise private investment into the transition to warmer homes and cleaner heating: Energy Saving Stamp Duty Land Tax and a shift in levies from electricity bills to general taxation. We also renew our call for funding for local authorities to act as local drivers of widespread home retrofit and for funding to restore the number of local authority planning officers and boost their capacity to make sound, rapid planning decisions and shape local area plans.

The post Autumn Budget Representation 2024 appeared first on UKGBC.

What is Future Leaders?

The renowned six-month Future Leaders programme is designed for forward-thinking professionals with 5-10 years’ experience in the built environment industry. Through a mix of online and in person workshops, retreats and showcase events, participants work in teams to develop the skills and personal confidence to drive transformational change in their organisation. This transformation will not come about by business as usual, but through a radical and fundamental shift, in which sustainability and innovative thinking are strategic drivers.

Participants benefit from a range of expert inputs and high profile keynote speakers, and will work to develop an innovation idea on key built environment sustainability challenges which are developed through the programme.

Application deadline – 6th December 2024

The action-focussed programme runs across a six-month period and is structured in three parts with a number of touchpoints

Part One: Explore and Initiate

• Kick-off – 21st January (online)
• Innovation field trip – 28-30th January (Leeds)
• Check-in call – 12th February (online)

Part Two: Develop and Experiment

• Nature retreat – 18-19th March (Hawkwood, Stroud)
• Check-in call (innovation work) – 3rd April (online)
• Storytelling workshop – 28th April (London)

Part Three: Showcase and Reflect

• Showcase – 5th June (London)
• Reflection session – 17th June (online)

Participants will also benefit from small group coaching sessions and 1-1 coaching sessions.

Who should apply?

Future Leaders are drawn from a range of backgrounds from the built environment sector, and are selected based on an enthusiasm to learn, an openness to new ways of thinking, and a desire to challenge the status quo. It is not a prerequisite to have sustainability in the job title – in fact the diversity of perspectives is crucial to the programme’s success.

As with our other leadership programmes, applications for Future Leaders are highly competitive, and we accept a maximum of two applicants from each organisation. All applicants must be endorsed by a line manager/ senior director in their organisation.

When your are ready to submit your application please complete and return to leaders@ukgbc.org. Once all applications are received, they are put before a review panel for assessment and a decision will be made within 2 weeks. As part of the application process, you might be asked to participate in a short telephone interview. Applicants are chosen based upon their knowledge, experience, and desire to challenge current systems and ways of working.

UKGBC offers up to five bursary places each year to an individual from either a not-for-profit organisation, SME, or local authority. In order to be considered for this place, your organisation must be a UKGBC member. Please contact leaders@ukgbc.org for more information.

If you have any further questions, please get in touch.

 

Download the Future Leaders Application Form here

Download the Future Leaders Prospectus here

Leadership Programme strategic partners

Learning & Leadership

Explore UKGBC’s diverse and comprehensive Learning and Leadership portfolio with a range of opportunities to raise awareness, deepen sustainability knowledge and build skills.

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