| Climate change is the biggest challenge we face today, and the built environment is in the front line of the battle to cut our carbon emissions as far as possible, as fast as possible. The way in which we construct and use our homes and other buildings in the UK accounts for approximately 45% of our total emissions, and while the biggest challenge remains how we can tackle the existing stock, the vast majority of which will still be standing in 2050, it is essential that our new homes and buildings are as energy efficient as possible, and are able to meet all of their energy needs from renewable energy sources.
Executive Summary
Background
The goal for all new homes to be ˇ®zero carbon' by 2016 is perhaps the most ambitious
environmental policy this Government has introduced. It sets out improvements to energy
requirements in Building Regulations, in 2010, 2013 with a final leap to ˇ®zero carbon' in 2016.
Government recognised that industry needed clarity on the future direction of Building
Regulations, and needed to gear up in advance of 2016. As a result, it issued a definition in its
Code for Sustainable Homes Technical Guidance in April 2007 which provided an option for offsite
renewables to be considered, although no mechanism existed to demonstrate this at the
time. The Treasury announced a stamp duty land tax relief scheme for zero carbon homes
constructed up to 2012.
In doing, this Treasury defined ˇ®zero carbon' to exclude the use of off-site renewables that
weren't connected to the development by a private wire. Following this, the zero carbon
definition in the Code for Sustainable Homes Technical Guidance was amended to also exclude
the use of off-site renewables, in order to be consistent with the Treasury's definition.
Concerns were raised by housebuilders, both large and small, that this definition was
unworkable. A lack of clarity over the definitions, and therefore future trajectory of building
regulations, threatened not only the ability to deliver the Government's ambitious housing
targets, but also created confusion amongst engineers, architects, developers and their clients.
To help Government respond to these concerns, the UK-GBC established a task group to bring
together industry stakeholders to recommend solutions. Government welcomed this and officials
from Communities and Local Government (CLG), Business Enterprise Regulatory Reform (BERR)
and Her Majesty's Treasury (HMT) sat as observers on the group.
Case Studies and Modelling Scenarios
The task group began by undertaking a review of real case studies where developers have built
or were in the process of building exemplar low- and zero carbon developments to assess what
solutions were being employed and to identify constraints.
A computer simulation (developed by consultants Element Energy for the recent Renewables
Advisory Board report on the potential role of on-site renewable energy solutions) was then used
to model further scenarios for zero carbon definitions. It concluded that, according to all the |