Regenerative design is the next frontier: why sustainability is no longer enough

By Juliana Renn, Head of Sustainability, HLM Architects

A decade ago, net zero felt like the horizon we were all racing towards. Today, it’s closer to base camp. The UK built environment has become much better at measuring carbon, specifying low-embodied-energy materials and designing to Passivhaus and BREEAM standards. That progress matters, but as someone who has spent 14 years moving from architecture and environmental design into sustainability leadership, I’ve watched the conversation shift; the direction of travel has already transitioned sustainability from a competitive advantage to a fundamental requirement.

Net zero is, by definition, a subtraction exercise, it asks how little damage a building can cause. Regenerative design asks a different question: what can this building give back? Can it improve the health of the soil beneath it, the biodiversity around it, the wellbeing of the people inside it, and the resilience of the community it sits within? That’s a much bigger brief, and it’s the one our sector now needs to pick up.

Why ambition keeps outpacing delivery

Most practices, ours included, have signed up to Architects Declare. Clients often expect a sustainability strategy as standard and while the ambition is there, the gap is in delivery at scale. Procurement models still reward the lowest capital cost over long-term performance. Perhaps, planning systems are only beginning to incorporate ecological gain requirements in their policies
Currently, funding structures disregard future benefit in favour of near-term cost certainty. This undervalues things like long-term resilience, adaptability and ecosystem recovery. Now that these phenomena become more important in building design, the inherited systems – not built for regenerative outcomes – need to be updated.

What this looks like in practice

We’re finding that regenerative thinking works best when it’s embedded at the outset, not retrofitted once a scheme is already designed.

At Trent View College, a Special Educational Needs and Disability school we designed to full Passivhaus standard, we treated inclusive design and building performance as the same problem, not two competing briefs. For example, the school includes a hydrotherapy pool, an energy-intensive facility, within a fabric-first, low-energy building.

At Wetherby Pembridge, the new secondary school and community theatre we’re fitting out within the Olympia London regeneration, we focused on choosing natural materials like timber, stone and terrazzo. This enabled us to establish a colour-focused wayfinding strategy which ensures students and staff can navigate the building easily, making the environment intuitive and user-friendly.

Keeping embodied carbon in the ground and reinvesting the value of what already exists back into the local economy represents regeneration in its fullest sense – environmental, social and economic outcomes designed together, not traded off against each other.

Considering embodied carbon

Embodied carbon shows why sustainability must be viewed through a broader lens. While operational energy has rightly received significant attention, embodied carbon represents the emissions associated with materials extraction, manufacturing, transportation, construction, maintenance and eventual end-of-life processes.

The World Green Building Council has set ambitious targets for reducing embodied carbon, calling for all new buildings, infrastructure and renovations to achieve at least 40% less embodied carbon by 2030, alongside significant reductions in upfront carbon. By 2050, the ambition is for new buildings to achieve net zero embodied carbon.

Achieving those outcomes will require more than incremental improvements. We must rethink procurement, material selection, supply chains and construction methodologies from first principles.

The mindset shift the sector needs

Regenerative design has to shape the brief from day one: who is consulted, what existing assets are retained rather than demolished, how a building’s performance will be measured years after handover, and what ‘success’ means beyond a certificate.

It also means being honest that not every client or funder is ready for this yet – which is exactly why the practices doing it now, and sharing how, matter. Recognition schemes like the Regenerative Architecture Index exist for that reason, to allow the industry to show its working.

Sustainability got us to ask how to do less damage. Regenerative design asks how to leave places, and the people in them, better off than we found them. That’s a harder brief to write and a harder one to deliver. But it’s the only one worth taking on now.

About the author: Juliana Renn

A certified Passivhaus designer, LEED and BREEAM accredited professional, Juliana has over 14 years’ experience in architecture, environmental design and sustainable building practice. With expertise spanning a diverse range of sectors, including commercial, residential, student accommodation, and infrastructure, Juliana has architectural degrees from Brazil and Portugal, a PGDip Arch from the University of Westminster and a Masters of Science in Environmental Design and Engineering from The Bartlett UCL.