Submission by Elliott Wood.
Being a good ancestor
Practice
1. Do you have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We’re looking for a bold ambition here, and a culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking.
Our practice is purpose-led, with sustainability and long-term societal impact embedded into our culture, strategy and design approach. We have been B Corp certified since 2023 and use our community-led co-working space as a platform for positive impact on both people and planet.
Since launching the space in 2019, our mission has remained central to everything we do: “To Engineer a Better Society.” Established in response to the climate and social challenges facing the built environment, this mission reflects our belief that the industry must take collective responsibility for future generations.
In summer 2025, we launched a company-wide regenerative design competition focused on an RSPB visitor centre within the Norfolk Coast National Landscape. Teams were challenged to apply regenerative design principles including bioregional material sourcing, biodiversity enhancement, community resilience, cross-industry co-benefits and being good ancestors. The competition concluded with an open industry review evening to encourage collaboration and shared learning.
2. Do you have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We’re looking for a bold ambition here, and a culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking.
Elliott Wood has evolved from a Partnership into a LLP and today in its incorporated form. The last iteration gave ownership access across the business with 30 senior staff (20%) becoming shareholders. Opportunities for senior staff to become shareholders has continued ever since with 87% of shares held by Board Members and Elliott Wood Employees. In 2024 Elliott Wood reached 30 years of business, a milestone celebrated, and work continues to develop the next cohort of leaders to retain the values and ethos that continues to drive positive impact across the business and within the industry. Part of the commitment to B Corp is about seeing people, planet and profit in equal measure. In May 2026 we expanded our Team Director team promoting people that have been invested in the values of the organisation to continue to help retain those values to drive the business further forward.
3. Do you share research and knowledge for the benefit of society and the wider world?
We created a tool for assessing embodied carbon; the Structural Carbon Tool, and shared it for free with the industry through the IStructE – we have since updated it three times and it has been downloaded over 10,000 times.
We lead a consortium of designers, insurers experts and developers to produce a commercial timber guidebook that fosters cross-sector industry alignment and promotes the widespread adoption of mass timber offices.
We launched The Building Archives, a free industry platform for storing historic building drawings and information. The platform supports the retention, reuse and repurposing of existing buildings, helping reduce unnecessary demolition and promoting circular approaches within the built environment.
We launched our first material impact report which shares the impact of materials specified through our design work and research undertaken to reduce environmental and social harm, with the aim of transitioning to a regenerative use of materials that has positive impacts.
Project
1. Do you advocate for long-term thinking at the outset of work? Do you initiate work with long-term thinking and challenge clients? Also, can the organisation demonstrate that this approach has worked?
We have started to adopt future visioning workshops in our scope of works where possible. This was first undertaken on a National Trust project, where the project team were guided through a version of the ‘human layers’ meditation, considering the history of the site and responsibility for future generations. The result of the workshop was a co-written letter from the project team to visitors in seven generations time, outlining our commitment to the needs of the future.
2. Does your work take account of the future climate and the need for resilience?
We have invested in digital tools and research to promote future resilience of supply chains, in particular through the use of material passports. On the King’s Lynn Much project, we undertook research into the use of material passports to embed value in the digital twin so that the Council has knowledge to repurpose materials when the building reaches the end of it’s current life.
On all of our projects, we review ownership models for the buildings and ensure decisions are not made solely based on the short-term needs of the next occupants, and that a longer-term plan is established to ensure significant works are not required every time their is a change in tenancy or due to changes in societal trends and fashion.
3. Does the majority of your work go beyond mitigating negatives and towards optimising positives?
We have been involved in several industry leading projects that move the dial in terms of circular economy and low carbon materials.
Our 30 Duke Street project is due to complete this year, and is the largest steel reuse project in London – using 78% of reclaimed steel in the frame.
On Giltspur Street, we utilised a jacking system to move floors within the existing building, avoiding demolition of any floor plates while adding a new floor.
On every project, we run an innovation session to explore opportunities for regenerative approaches to ensure we embed innovation in all projects. On 33 Cavendish Square, this resulted in proposing 40 ideas to the Client, with vaulted floor slabs and recycled concrete being incorporated into the scheme. Vaulted floor slabs have never been done in a commercial building but save more than 50% of concrete compared to traditional slabs.
Co-evolving with nature
Practice
1. Do you use biophilia within your premises and/or do you regularly gather in natural settings?
We have a wide range of plants throughout our offices, these are maintained and add a relaxed and calming feel to the environment.
We encourage meetings to be held as a walking meeting or as an outdoor meeting and provide guidance to staff on safe local routes and spots.
From 2025 we revised how we look at our summer and winter socials, aligning these with our ESG values to ensure that all socials align to helping restore clean rivers and beaches, litter picking, surveying wildlife or repairing dry stone walls. In 2025 we visited the WWT Barnes for our summer social choosing to be amongst nature at a wetlands reserve, we got the opportunity to learn about the species that live and utilise the wetlands as well as what it takes to maintain this space, we then had a series of activities all focused on regenerative thinking principles.
2. Can you share examples of where you have considered nature in decision making?
Nature is actively considered in both our project delivery and wider business decision-making processes.
To embed this thinking internally, we hosted a lunchtime workshop focused on “Nature as a Stakeholder,” which was very well received. During our annual Christmas workshop, we also asked staff to explore how nature could be included as a voice within the practice, generating a range of ideas that we continue to develop to ensure nature is recognised as a stakeholder in our business. The next steps from these activities is an initiative to explore how rights can be given to nature within the company – we are collaborating with the Earth Law Centre and taking inspiration from companies such as Patagonia and Faith in Nature.
We used our in-house regenerative design competition to encourage teams to consider not only the immediate impact of decisions on nature, but also the long-term implications for future ecological resilience.
3. Are you supporting nature locally and nationally?
Though our ESG programme we ensure that nature is a continual theme, though our supply chain and ensuring that we use locally sourced and ethical suppliers, where all catering is vegetarian and vegan with awareness of provenance critical and food being seasonally sourced.
Throughout the business and within The Society Building we engage with staff and members on how they can contribute, we hold a Sustainable Living Series which focuses on topics such as reducing plastic waste to eating with the seasons.
Elliott Wood also supports the UK woodland fund as part of our carbon offsetting via Carbon Neutral Britain and we are exploring opportunities for more tree planting and engaging with organisations to help facilitate this with an ambition to have our own woodland in the future.
Project
1. Can you demonstrate work that strives to match the performance of a mature ecosystem?
On the 10th June we will launch our Regenerative Design Handbook – this is co-designed book by our staff exploring key concepts of regenerative design in the built environment, connecting systems thinking, imagination, land and ocean use, being a good ancestor, co-design with nature and provocations on measuring success in complex systems.
The process of publishing a book on this topic, which will be freely available, has truly embraced principles of self-organisation, emergence, inter-connectedness and complexity which is seen in mature ecosystems.
2. Are you working on material stewardship?
In 2025 we published our first material impact report, which calculates the total material use across our design work and estimates ecological and social impacts of this material use. The report shares what we know already, and commits to ongoing research to improve our understanding of material impacts and over time transition from negative to positive impacts. We use the doughnut economics model to assess these impacts and each year will progress our knowledge and understanding further in at least one area. We will also set targets over time on material use, and have held internal workshops to discuss applying good ancestor principles to set these targets. In last years report, we included a research study tracking every material that arrived on site to its source, through the complex supply chains, to understand social and environmental impacts.
3. Does the majority of your work demonstrate the use of biologically-inspired approaches such as Bioregionalism, Biophilia or Biomimicry?
We have introduced these concepts to our projects through innovation workshops, where we review and collate several ideas based on the unique requirements of each project.
On 33 Cavendish Square, we are utilising a vaulted form in the floor slabs to reduce concrete by more than 50%, and almost entirely remove the need for steel reinforcement. This follows biomimicry and efficient shapes found in nature, such as soap films. The complexity of incorporated this means it has never been implemented at scale in the UK – however we have worked with a Swiss University to develop the concept and de-risk the approach, incorporated them into the design team. This led to the inclusion of vaulted slabs in the planning submission, demonstrating the commitment to delivering this solution on site in the coming years.
Creating a just space for people
Practice
1. Do you have a progressive EDI policy and can you evidence many forms of diversity, which are welcomed and acknowledged, within your company/organisation?
We promote justice, equality, diversity and inclusion, which is also supported through our certification with B Corp. This includes protecting employees from any form of discrimination in the workplace, under the Equality Act 2010. We have an active JEDII committee which oversees our justice, equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives within our business. This team meet on a quarterly basis to discuss plans. In 2024 we launched affinity groups to further breakdown the different groups to ensure each group was represented by staff members to ensure that we are a fully inclusive business. To support this, we continually run a ‘Speak out’ campaign to ensure any unethical or discriminatory behaviour is reported appropriately and steps are taken to educate people appropriately.
As part of our commitment to encouraging equality, diversity, and inclusion, we actively record the diversity that exists across our practice via a yearly diversity and inclusion survey.
2. Do you operate a no overtime culture, meet the living wage consistently, and stipulate a fair salary ratio between staff of all levels?
Elliott Wood discourages working overtime and with consultation of the business undertook a reduction in contractual hours from 40 to 37.5, to aid better work life balance. In addition, on a quarterly basis Me days can be awarded for meeting business targets, which are additional days off for people to spend for the benefit of themselves or for volunteering.
An equal pay to equal value and gender pay gap review is carried out on an annual basis to ensure that all salaries are fair and consistent and this also ensure that all employees are paid at least the London Living Wage. This is also the case for any apprentices and interns.
3. Do you support charities, community groups, social enterprises, action groups and others through pro-bono work, charitable giving or in-kind donations?
Through our “ME Day” scheme, we encourage all employees to undertake at least one volunteering day each year, while also supporting wider volunteering opportunities with schools, colleges, and universities. These initiatives help promote creativity and learning through STEAM-focused activities. We also provide our time and spaces to programmes such as Build The Way and The People’s Pavilion, supporting workshops and mentoring opportunities for young people.
Our wider volunteering and pro bono activities include supporting Camden Food Bank, volunteering at the Twilight Building at The Triangle, and participating in a range of charity fundraising and community engagement events.
We have partnered with the purpose-led charity organisation B1G1, enabling donations to be directed to a wide range of charitable initiatives.
We provide both financial and practical support to HomeGrown+, a charity focused on improving diversity within architecture by engaging students from non-traditional backgrounds
4. Do you use an ethical framework to assess opportunities and/or supply chain partners and is them team consulted on these decisions?
Many of our clients are long standing with relationships based upon trust and shared values. When new opportunities are sought week specially seek clients whose values align with our own. Our B-Corp accreditation has created an ecosystem of fellow B-Corp’s and we are now actively looking for clients and projects.
When projects and opportunities arrive from new sources a careful process of assessing the clients and their values and reputations is undertaken.
With a clear purpose that we actively promote we also find that we are simply not approached by businesses whose values would fall short of our own.
It is almost impossible to publicly refuse projects and clients as NDA’s accompany almost all new enquiries.
Project
1. Does your work demonstrate deep engagement with local stakeholders and end users?
We have engaged with the local supply chains in a novel piece of work with a Client to unlock steel reuse at scale. This research collates evidence and case studies from the last ten years, reviews the state of the market and proposes solutions for widespread adoption.
This will enable a local and resilient supply chain and reduce reliance of volatile global markets affect by geopolitics, benefiting local business and supporting local jobs.
2. Does your work create connected and resilient communities which positively contribute to neighbourhoods and allow equality of access?
We have helped Westminster City Council over the past few years to create the ‘retrofit first’ policy, which was adopted at the start of this year. This policy promotes the retrofitting of existing buildings and introduces a presumption against demolition, which damages local community cohesion and affects lives for long periods of loud, dusty and disruptive demolition works.
3. Does the majority of your work promote equity in society, and consider all people, not only building inhabitants
A key concept in our regenerative design handbook is ‘second sites’, considering the impact our material use has on wider society. We launched our material impact report to investigate and improve these impacts, and have supported industry guidance that considers global impacts of local decisions. We contributed to the UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard development, and in particular to the introduction of a clause that ensures applicants must report calculations using an industry average carbon factor for key materials – ensuring reductions on one project aren’t simply achieved by hoarding finite resources.
As part of structural engineers declare, we also collaborated with the steering group members to produce a guidance note on ethics and child labour associated with material use in the UK.