Category: Sustainable buildings · Reviewed by Tim Roche, Director · PI & Commercial · Last reviewed 2026-06-10
The Building Safety Act 2022 does not regulate carbon emissions directly, but its golden thread duties, Higher-Risk Buildings regime and extended Defective Premises Act limitation period have material implications for embodied carbon, retrofit and net zero design — and consequently for the property, PI and latent defects insurance arranged around those projects.
Category: Sustainable buildings Also known as: BSA 2022 carbon, Building Safety Act sustainability, BSA carbon insurance Typical UK market form: PI for principal designer + property all risks + 15+ year latent defects on HRBs Related concepts: Embodied carbon insurance, Whole life carbon assessment insurance, Latent defects insurance
The Building Safety Act 2022 (“BSA”) received Royal Assent on 28 April 2022 and is the UK’s principal legislative response to the Grenfell Tower fire and the subsequent Hackitt Review. It established the Building Safety Regulator (“BSR”) within the Health and Safety Executive (operative October 2023), created a new regime of duties for “Higher-Risk Buildings” (HRBs), extended liability under the Defective Premises Act 1972, introduced building safety levies on developers and reorganised the construction products regulatory framework.
“Carbon implications” refers to the Act’s indirect effects on the design, construction and insurance of low-carbon, net zero and retrofit projects. Although the BSA itself is silent on carbon performance, its golden thread information requirement, its longer limitation periods, its product-traceability emphasis and its imposition of Principal Designer and Principal Contractor duties under the Building Regulations 2010 (as amended) all interact with the embodied carbon, retrofit and MMC agendas — sometimes constructively and sometimes in tension.
The Act does not establish carbon standards but interacts with several. The RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment for the Built Environment, 2nd edition (September 2023) is increasingly cited as a “golden thread” data input. The UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard, Pilot Version 1.0 (September 2024) explicitly assumes BSA-compliant building information availability. BREEAM (BRE Global, first published 1990), LEED (USGBC, first published 1998), Passivhaus (Passivhaus Institut, Darmstadt — UK certification under BS EN ISO 17025 accreditation) and EnerPHit (Passivhaus retrofit standard) all require evidence streams that intersect with the BSR’s submission requirements for Higher-Risk Buildings.
The Construction Products regime, restructured by the BSA and the Construction Products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, ties into the UKCA marking system. This intersects with embodied carbon reporting because Environmental Product Declarations under BS EN 15804+A2 are increasingly tied to the same product approvals records that the BSA “golden thread” requires.
Property all-risks rating for BSA-regulated buildings — particularly HRBs — is materially affected by the regime. Insurers price the asset taking into account the longer warranty exposure (12 years minimum on HRBs versus 10 years on conventional new-build), the requirement for the Accountable Person to maintain a Safety Case Report under the Higher-Risk Buildings (Management of Safety Risks etc) (England) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/907), and the prohibition on certain combustible materials under the Building (Amendment) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/1230) for buildings over 18 metres. Where net zero or BREEAM Outstanding targets have been pursued through novel materials, capacity restrictions can be tight.
Professional indemnity for Principal Designers under the Building Regulations 2010 (as amended by the Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023, SI 2023/911) has hardened materially since 2023. Where the Principal Designer is also delivering a net zero or Passivhaus design role, the aggregation of carbon-related and safety-related claims is material. London market PI insurers — Beazley, Markel, Travelers, RSA — typically apply a single each-and-every claim limit, meaning a single fire-engineering or cladding claim can erode the cover available for any carbon-related claim. Latent defects providers — NHBC, LABC Warranty, Premier Guarantee — have tightened their underwriting for HRBs, with NHBC’s “NHBC Accepts” scheme now central to MMC components manufactured off-site. The Insurer Wider Buildings (IWB) inspection regimes operated by Allianz, Zurich and AIG require evidence of compliance with the BSR’s Gateway 2 and Gateway 3 consents.
Section 135 of the Building Safety Act 2022 extended the limitation period under the Defective Premises Act 1972 to 30 years retrospective and 15 years prospective. For carbon-related design work, this is profound: a WLCA report or Passivhaus design issued in 2026 carries Defective Premises Act exposure until 2041. The Building Safety (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/909) defines an HRB as a residential building of at least 18 metres or 7 storeys and establishes the three-Gateway approvals process — Gateway 1 (planning), Gateway 2 (pre-construction), Gateway 3 (completion).
The Building Safety Regulator within the HSE (established October 2023) is the building control authority for HRBs. The Construction Products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the UKCA marking regime apply to all building products. Approved Document L (2021 edition, operative 15 June 2022) sets operational carbon standards; Approved Document F (2021) addresses ventilation; Approved Document O (2021) addresses overheating, all of which are highly relevant to low-carbon design. The Future Homes Standard consultation closed in March 2024 with implementation expected during 2025.
Developers of HRBs targeting net zero or BREEAM Outstanding need to plan their insurance programme around the BSA regime rather than treating safety and sustainability as separate workstreams. The PI required for the Principal Designer role must be confirmed before Gateway 2 submission; the latent defects warranty must be secured before Gateway 3 completion; and the Safety Case Report on which the IWB inspection regime depends must be linked to the same building information that supports the WLCA. Boards should expect to invest in golden-thread digital platforms (Common Data Environments, BS EN ISO 19650-compliant) that serve both safety and carbon agendas.
Owners and managers of existing HRBs facing EnerPHit-style retrofit should ensure that retrofit interventions do not invalidate the Safety Case Report — external wall insulation, in particular, is in tension with the post-Grenfell prohibition on combustible cladding above 18 metres.
A London developer commences a 22-storey BREEAM Outstanding residential HRB in 2026. The Principal Designer carries £15m PI with no aggregation between safety and carbon claims. NHBC issues a Buildmark Choice warranty for the 12-year minimum HRB period, conditional on Gateway 3 sign-off by the BSR. The property all risks insurer requires the Safety Case Report and the WLCA report at policy inception. The Defective Premises Act limitation period for the design team’s work runs to 2041 under section 135.
This entry is part of the Apex Insurance Wiki. Last reviewed by Matt Bartlett on 2026-06-10. Next review: 2026-12-10.
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