CONCRETE COMMITMENTS
LEGALISING ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS TO DECARBONISE THE UK BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Lenka Petrakova

Dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of an MSc degree in Construction Law & Dispute Resolution 
King’s College London, 09/2025
A statutory environmental right could be the missing legal mechanism for built-environment decarbonisation in the UK. My research sets out a reform pathway, drawing on jurisprudence and international human rights law, to embed accountability, resilience, and justice across construction governance. I demonstrate how fragmented legal and regulatory regimes weaken enforceability and undermine sector-wide decarbonisation. I argue that a statutory right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment could unify planning, building regulation, procurement, and corporate governance under coherent climate duties, closing governance gaps and supporting net-zero delivery.

Recognition
Society of Construction Law Prize for Best Dissertation. 

Additional awards: 
SCL Prize for Best Overall Graduate (2024/25); 
David Caron Prize for Advanced Construction Law (2024/25); 
King’s College Construction Law Association Prize.

Problem
The problem: governance fragmentation produces accountability gaps
The construction regime is fragmented, and the consequence is not only complexity but diffused responsibility. This leads to four recurring failures: 
(1) planning can approve high-carbon schemes that downstream controls cannot meaningfully correct; 
(2) carbon obligations remain weakly enforceable, framed as policy or reporting rather than audit-ready duties; 
(3) embodied and whole-life carbon fall between regimes; and 
(4) responsibility is displaced onto supply chains while while the governance and investment decisions aren’t tied to enforceable climate duties.
Because buildings are long-lived assets, these gaps allow single design choices to lock in emissions for decades.
Proposal
The proposal: a statutory environmental right as a unifying legal standard
I argue that a statutory right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment could function as a unifying legal standard for the built environment. The value of the right is not symbolic. Properly framed, it supplies what current governance lacks: a coherent baseline that can anchor duties across multiple regimes and make climate delivery justiciable. 
Change
A rights-based framework would make carbon responsibility non-negotiable at every key stage.
Planning: applies one clear climate standard when permissions are granted.
Building control: requires whole-life performance, not just design predictions.
Procurement: builds carbon targets into contracts and enforces them.
Corporate governance: makes senior decision-makers accountable for delivery.
To make this research more accessible, I’m producing a series of short videos that translate the paper’s core themes into clear, focused episodes, one topic at a time. You can watch the videos here, simply click the image, or follow me on Instagram for more.
Episode 1 - Why Decarbonising Buildings Matters
Did you know the UK’s buildings and construction sector is linked to roughly 40% of national greenhouse-gas emissions when you count both operational energy and construction impacts? In this episode, we look at why the built environment is not just part of the climate problem, but one of the most decisive routes to solving it.
Episode 2 - What Are Environmental Rights?
Should you have a legal right to breathe clean air, drink safe water, and live in buildings that do not intensify the climate crisis? In this episode, we look at a deceptively simple question: if every building decision is already a climate decision, what are people actually entitled to expect from the environment around them?
Episode 3 - UK Climate Promises vs Building Reality
Net zero by 2050 is now a legal obligation in the UK, but does construction law genuinely support that goal? In this episode, we look at the gap between the UK’s binding climate framework and the rules that actually shape buildings, infrastructure, and procurement on the ground.
Episode 4 - From Promises to Legal Duties
Climate targets are easy to announce. In this episode, we look at a harder question: what changes if a healthy environment becomes a legal duty rather than a political promise?
Episode 5 - What changes immediately under an environmental right
If the United Kingdom adopted a legal right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, what would change in construction straight away. In this episode, we look at practical change, not targets or slogans, but duties that reshape real projects.


Episode 6 - The Performance Gap 
The performance gap is the distance between predicted and real energy use. UK evidence suggests new buildings often consume far more energy than modelled, because compliance frameworks reward design-stage assumptions rather than verified outcomes. In a rights-based system, net-zero compliance must be measured in use, with monitoring, transparency, and consequences for persistent underperformance.

Recording coming soon.
Episode 7 - Planning After Environmental Rights 
Current planning duties often require decision-makers to “have regard” to climate impacts, but still allow them to approve high-carbon schemes through discretionary balancing. A statutory environmental right reframes planning as a rights-compatibility test, supported by Environmental Rights Impact Statements, defined thresholds, and legally meaningful public participation.

Recording coming soon.
Episode 8 - Private Actors: Who Owes Duties in a Rights-Based System? 
The transition to net zero depends on private decisions: design, materials, procurement, and finance. A statutory environmental right with horizontal effect would make companies direct duty-bearers, requiring due diligence, verifiable whole-life assessment, and rights-compatible decision-making at board and project level.

Recording coming soon.
Episode 9 - A Direct Cause of Action: When Environmental Harm Needs Its Own Remedy
A statutory environmental right requires an enforcement pathway that can address serious ecological and climate harm even when traditional doctrines struggle with diffuse or future-oriented impacts. A dedicated cause of action, with a seriousness threshold and restoration-first remedies, would make environmental protection legally operational in high-risk sectors such as construction.

Recording coming soon.
Episode 10 - Oversight and Compatibility: How Do We Stop Bad Law Being Made?
Environmental rights require more than project-by-project enforcement. They need upstream legal design: compatibility screening for new laws, independent oversight, and judicial tools to address secondary measures that undermine binding climate and ecological duties. Procedural guarantees - information, participation, justice - are the delivery mechanism of the right.

Recording coming soon.
Episode 11 - Professional Liability: Climate Due Diligence as Competent Practice
Construction professionals already face significant exposure for defective design and unmet performance obligations. A statutory environmental right would sharpen the standard of care: climate risk appraisal, whole-life impacts, resilience, and rights-compatibility advice become components of competent practice, reinforced through contracts, insurance, and professional competence regimes.

Recording coming soon.
Episode 12 - The Objections: “Too Vague”, “Too Litigious”, “Too Much for Courts”
Objections to environmental rights - vagueness, judicial overreach, redundancy - are best addressed through careful statutory design. A well-defined right, supported by standards, thresholds, and proportionate remedies, improves legal coherence and reduces the implementation gap between net-zero commitments and construction practice.

Recording coming soon.
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