" /> Post Conference Report: Achieving Low Carbon Buildings Essential to Tackling Climate Change

Section: Conferences & Seminars

Post Conference Report: Achieving Low Carbon Buildings Essential to Tackling Climate Change

In response to the draft Climate Change Bill (March 2007), the Waterfront Conference Company and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) held a conference to discuss the framework for moving the UK towards a low-carbon economy.

Currently, according to experts, we are experiencing the effects of the emissions produced in the 1960's. This idea of a 'time lag' is crucial for driving the stabilisation of our carbon emissions today, with only a few years' grace to prevent what is being called "catastrophic, or runaway, climate change."

With the built environment contributing approximately half of the total CO2 emissions, the Government has responded by wanting all new housing to be "zero carbon" within 10 years. In addition to this, there is to be a series of measures to reduce the carbon footprint of all existing buildings (government, public, commercial and private). The conference featured high profile speakers who discussed and demonstrated measures that can be used to achieve these targets. However, key to any marked improvement is behavioural change, to change the way people live without reducing quality of life.

Nicky Gavron (Deputy Mayor of London) explained that urban areas use 75% of energy making them a vulnerable target to the effects of climate change. Nicky described how London aims to execute the Mayor's Climate Change Action Plan through a number of initiatives, and to become an exemplar sustainable world city by reaching the government target of a 60% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2025, ahead of the originally proposed date of 2050.

City leadership must take centre stage (particularly in light of London's urban heat island effect). Seventy percent of London's total emissions are from powering and heating buildings. To lower this figure, three main objectives are to be met: reducing the need for energy, combined heat, power and cooling, and on-site renewable energy.

Stella Bland (CABE) stressed that a large percentage of the private housing built between 2001 and 2006 is "not good enough" and that a number should not have received planning permission (in accordance with Building for Life Standards). A poorly constructed layout, road domination, and highways dictating building were three of the problems listed with this private housing.

Peter Fisher (Bennetts Associates Architects) pointed out that commercial buildings are also falling heavily short of emission reduction targets with a conventional office generating 80-90kg of CO2/m2 per year and a conventional office in London generating 134kg. By comparison, the Wessex Water Head Quarters in Bath (built to achieve the brief of scoring a BREEAM 'excellent' rating) generates just 28kg. The Wessex HQ benefits from a south facing position, the use of solar water heating and thermal mass; this new technology is estimated to have a 15 year payback period.

The target for house production is 240,000 a year, but, as Stephen Stone (Crest Nicholson) pointed out, only 175,000 a year are currently being delivered. Developers are having difficulty meeting the current demands even before regulation and legislation requiring them to produce "greener" housing.

A common theme echoed by most speakers was that any success in tackling the carbon emissions from buildings requires joined up thinking and governance. There needs to be a common message and collaboration between local authorities, centralised government and housing developers. The drive for a market 'want' to live in an eco-home will have to come from these sources in order to achieve widespread behavioural change in buyers.

Aware that this will take time to implement, short-term solutions were proposed by Zoltan Zavody (Energy Saving Trust), who explained that if every household across the country took up all of the "basics" (simple, cost effective measures), e.g., internal external wall insulation, advanced glazing, air tightness and heat recovery ventilation, and microgeneration, there was a potential to cut emissions by 20%, a third of the Government's target for 2050. In addition, it is felt that there must be overall lower energy use achieved through the education of consumers and financial incentives.

There is already legislation in place for the reduction of emissions in existing and future buildings: the Code for Sustainable Housing and Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). Chris Twinn (Arup), commenting on the Code for Sustainable Housing, said it is a "path to zero carbon housing". However, the code is not fully welcomed by all: Stone (Crest Nicholson) predicts it will increase the costs of development by 13% but that only 3% will be added to the purchase price.

EPCs do not illicit great confidence for the assessment of existing buildings, with Stephen Boniface (The Whitworth Co-Partnership), explaining they must be used with caution and that they have little regard for how old houses function. He continued to say that EPCs could lead to inappropriate or poorly considered work on existing buildings, and that they ignore thermal mass and embodied energy. At best they are just too general to provide any indication of energy efficiency.

The overall message of the conference, and the wider aim of climate change policy, can be summed up with Dr Rajat Gupta's (Oxford Institute of Sustainable Development) concluding remark that we should be "living on the planet as if we intended to stay."

Information Note

Details of forthcoming Waterfront conferences are on their website at thewaterfront.co.uk.

September Diary Dates

Please visit the Forthcoming Events section of this website for a comprehensive listing of events.

Shelter September Training Events

For further details, call Shelter Training on 0844 515 1155 or visit there website at www.shelter.org.uk/training.

Housing Monthly Diary


Enter your email address to receive our e-bulletins advising on updates to the many sections of our website.

We will not share your email address with others or use it for any other purpose.

Reporting on July 2007

Quick Links

Login here for current editions

username: password:

New subscribers and free review

Archive Issues Reporting Periods

Featured Sites

Training & Events