The Marks and Spencer retail building in London might be saved from demolition thanks to rising support to retain buildings. But what are other leading countries doing? The UK government has blocked the demolition of the Marks and Spencer’s Oxford Street store in a move that looks to respond to the activist campaigners from within the built environment. …The movement is a campaign by the UK’s Architects’ Journal and historical building campaign group SAVE Britain’s Heritage, calling for priority in retrofitting existing buildings over demolition and rebuilding. …The Netherlands claims to be the first country to mandate life cycle assessments (LCAs) in 2013… Sweden followed suit in 2022, enacting the Act on Climate Declarations for New Buildings, which required developers to calculate the embodied carbon emissions for new buildings… France took it a step further calling for all new public buildings to be constructed from at least 50 per cent wood or other sustainable materials.