The most durable lightning protection conductor on most modern buildings was installed by the structural contractor. Steel frames, reinforced concrete, piled foundations and metal roof coverings are all recognised by BS EN 62305-3 as natural components, and where they qualify they are better than anything bolted on afterwards. They are protected from weather and vandalism, they carry far greater cross section than a tape, and they are already paid for.
The roof is where it starts. A metal roof covering can act as the air termination provided the thickness is adequate for the level of protection, the sheets are electrically continuous, and puncture of the covering is either acceptable or prevented. Continuity is the part that gets assumed rather than proven. Standing seam and clip fixed systems behave differently from through fixed profiles, and a coated or gasketed joint may look continuous while measuring as anything but. Test it before you design around it. Handrails, edge protection and parapet copings can serve the same purpose on the perimeter, subject to the same proof.
Down conductors are the biggest saving. A structural steel frame, or reinforced concrete with continuous and connected rebar, can provide the path to earth at every column position with no external tape at all. On a building with twenty five column positions that removes twenty five runs of facade tape, the fixings, the access to install them and the inspection burden for the life of the building. It requires bonds at high and low level at each position, and it requires those connections to be made and recorded as the structure goes up, which is a programme question as much as a technical one.
The foundation is the electrode. A Type B foundation earth electrode using the pile reinforcement and pile caps generally outperforms driven rods, particularly on made ground, and it removes a row of inspection pits from the finished landscaping. Where the piles are used, the connection points and the test facilities still have to be accessible, so the design has to say exactly where each test clamp will sit.
None of this is a licence to assume. There are perfectly ordinary situations where the honest answer is a dedicated system: bolted frames with unproven continuity, precast elements with no cast in connections, refurbishment where the structure is inaccessible, roofs where the covering is too thin for the required protection level, or a programme where the frame contractor has already finished and nothing was cast in. In those cases the external system is not a failure of imagination, it is the correct engineering answer, and it should be priced properly rather than dressed up as something cleverer.
The rule we work to is simple. Survey first, test what you intend to rely on, record the evidence in the design, and only add material where the building cannot do the job itself. It produces less copper, fewer penetrations, cleaner elevations and a system that is quicker to inspect every year for the rest of its life.