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2016 target for zero-carbon homes
Of the carbon reductions we have to make in the world, 50% are available through the built environment >>
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“Of the carbon reductions we have to make in the world, 50% are available through the built environment.”
In an article published in The Guardian in February 2008, Paul King, head of the Green Building Council - an independent body set up to push the drive towards sustainable buildings - explains why the built environment is so critical in reducing our carbon emissions, as fast as possible.
“We need to persuade people to think of the whole life costs of the building and future-proofing our homes.” He is also eyeing obligations that should be enforced on energy suppliers.
King wants the energy supply industry turned on its head and a cap put on the amount of energy each firm sells, and the firms to become energy service companies that sell people energy-saving equipment and a small amount of energy.
Buildings are crucial, he says. “Of the carbon reductions we have to make in the world, 50% are available through the built environment.”
You might think the GBC is just another trade body set up to preserve vested interests, but that would be to misunderstand King's philosophy.
Targets
The GBC is absolutely not a trade body, he insists, because it has a very broad membership of more than 200 organisations, up from 30 a year ago, including the energy giant E.ON. Green NGOs are in there, with developers such as British Land and Land Securities, and construction firms such as Stanhope. The GBC's chairman is Peter Rodgers, chief executive of Stanhope and brother of the architect Richard Rogers.
“The strength of the 2016 target”, King says, “is that the government has simply said where it wants to go - to a world where every new house is zero carbon - and is letting the industry sort out how to get there”.
A lot of critics, though, say the target is over-ambitious and will be missed because Britain's mass housebuilders are used to working with old-fashioned materials and are resistant to spending the extra money to make houses greener. King, though, says the target is achievable - just. “I absolutely think it can be done. There is a revolution going on in the building industry.”
“Builders have recognised it is better to be on the front foot and that early movers will reap the benefits in the longer term,” he says, pointing to the fact that Barratt Homes is building a cutting-edge prototype zero-carbon house at the Buildings Research Establishment in Watford.
The companies know that 2016 is virtually upon us in building terms, he argues. "These guys are planning developments now based on the 2016 target. This is real."
King is pushing for a code for sustainable non-domestic buildings to ensure all commercial buildings are built in a sustainable, zero-carbon way too. In November, the GBC brought out a report outlining how Britain could move to zero-carbon commercial buildings "within a decade".
King explains that the GBC is part of an international network of similar organisations that are trying to reduce the environmental impact of buildings. The industry will have to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% by 2040, he says, and its overall impact on the environment to zero by 2050 to achieve true sustainability.