Has the Government dropped another brick?
The theme of buildings, and their importance in the climate change and (more importantly) carbon reduction movement, has grown rapidly over the past six months.
The UK government originally came to the table with a commitment that would go some way to helping it reach its 2050 target of 80% reduction in carbon emissions from buildings by agreeing to include existing buildings and smaller work buildings in the original ‘Part L’ consultation process.
This has now been quietly dropped; the consultation will, therefore, only cover new build and existing large work buildings. The relevant trade body, the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), has been quick to highlight this move and voice its disappointment as well as, frankly, its concern that the UK will have little chance of reaching the 80% reduction target - which the Committee on Climate Change has now stated should be raised to 90% to be effective.
The government has, however, stuck to its commitment of ensuring that all new homes will need to be carbon zero by 2016 with non-domestic buildings set to follow suit by 2019 – which appears to very ambitious and may, in view of the recent climb down on carbon reduction measures, have to be taken with a large pinch of salt; with these deadlines approaching even faster, it cannot be too long before we witness a watering down of this statement also.
The UKGBC is calling for an industry ‘roadmap’ to bring together all Government policy and regulations to ensure they are not in conflict and does not cause further confusion; such a roadmap would ‘provide [the] clarity and certainty required to enable investment, innovation and effective delivery’. This assumes, however, that there is genuine intent to implement these strategies in the first place; given the dilution of the Part L consultation document, this is not at all certain.
This is not to say that there is not already ‘stuff’ going on to reduce the emissions from buildings. Many (admittedly, larger) companies have implemented efficiency measures in their corporate offices but these have mainly been to achieve a CO2 reduction sufficient to diminish their liability under the incoming Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (as it has recently been renamed, as if we needed clarification of what we need to do to reduce our carbon emissions!).
A far broader brush stroke will be required if building efficiency is to become mainstream and not just a move to minimise yet another financial penalty, whatever banner it may march under. That broader brush would have been, in part, supplied by the adoption of the Part L recommendations and would have helped, in no small part, to an employment boost for the buildings and construction industry.
Instead, the government has once again declined to put its money where its mouth is, knowing full well that a wholesale buildings efficiency programme would need, at some point, to be supported by state grants. Since there is a substantial pool of green money sloshing around the EU, far too little of which is actually being spent on green projects, one would have thought that, in this area at least, money would be less of an object… but then, what do I know?
