In order for the UK and, indeed, the world to meet the targets agreed in the 2016 Paris Agreement, significant reductions in the current rate of harmful emissions need to be made as soon as is practically possible. Engineering, which is responsible for many of the benefits seen in our modern society that we now see as essential to our way of life, needs to embrace cleaner technologies in power generation and transportation. Perhaps surprisingly, however, this is not the only way in which significant reductions in emissions can be made. As far as the built environment is concerned, the operational energy usage has rapidly become secondary to what is termed the embodied energy used in the construction and transportation of the materials used in buildings.