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John Healey: Building momentum for homes of the future

Published	24 November 2009

Housing Minister John Healey today confirmed that this country will be the first in the world to require zero carbon homes as a matter of law from 2016.

Draughty homes will be history as tough new green standards are set from 2016. Homes will have all round better insulated walls, windows, ceilings and floors to meet proposed new energy efficiency standards and avoid any loss of energy, saving up to £150 a year in bills.

Offices, shops, hotels and warehouses will also need to be built differently, so Mr Healey has today launched a consultation to gather evidence on how the zero carbon standards could be applied to non-domestic buildings from 2019.

He pledged an extra £3.2m to boost long-term research into how we design and build energy efficient homes. The research will use new technologies and materials to provide valuable evidence for future standards and how to drive down energy bills. He also announced that a new government consortium will use their combined green buying power of potentially over £10bn to boost green skills and technology, while also driving down costs.

Mr Healey said that the nation must step up the UK drive on climate change ahead of Copenhagen. He said that the new standards signalled "real momentum to change and radically re-think how we design our towns and homes for the future".

One in three homes in 2050 will be built between now and then, so he made clear that the new standards are necessary in order for the country to meet low carbon targets. He said the standards also met a desire to change the way we live, lower our fuel bills and increase the market value of our homes with improved green credentials. He said that "we're determined to see a cut in Britain's carbon emissions but to do that we have to design and build to new green standards in the future."

The announcements were made during a speech to the UK Green Building Council. He called on the building industry to use the public and market momentum to take action.

Housing and Planning Minister, John Healey, said:

"There's a driving force behind the green homes movement from homeowners, developers and local authorities, to reduce energy bills and carbon emissions. We're pushing at an open door, and there is a lot of momentum to change and radically re-think how we design our homes and buildings for the future.

"While pushing for international change at Copenhagen, we also need to act here in Britain too. These proposals present big changes ahead at a time when we are firming up Britain's green credentials and strengthening our position for negotiations at the conference in a few weeks time.

"Future growth must be green, that's why we're setting standards for new homes and new offices, factories, shops and other buildings.

"New homes are 40 per cent more energy efficient now compared to 2002, but we must and can do more. The green movement is growing from the grand designs of a few, to a national movement. Recent research has even suggested that eco-factors have become just as important as location and value for money.

"As a country, nearly half of our carbon emissions come from the built environment. That's more than roads, railways and airports combined.

"But communities and towns are made up of more than just homes, so today I have launched proposals for all new public sector buildings to be zero carbon from 2018 and all new commercial buildings from 2019. I want to gather all of the expertise out there so we have the best, practical solutions to do this.

"These new green initiatives underline the unique role that the government has in working alongside businesses and developers to legislate for change and act in the interests of the environment and the economy."

The confirmation of the energy efficiency standards and proposals for non-domestic buildings gives the building industry and stakeholders the opportunity to engage and aim higher.

As with zero carbon homes, non-domestic buildings will be able to reduce their emissions by going further with energy efficiency solutions or through the addition of onsite renewables. The proposals launched today outline how those emissions can be reduced both on and off site, including through community scale low carbon heat production for district networks.

These solutions could be linked with homes, to create a combined market for heat generation, which in turn helps nearby homes and other buildings lower their emissions.

Mr Healey's announcement for the allocation of £3.2m of Technology Strategy Board funding will boost the research into low carbon homes, gathering valuable evidence and driving innovation for the long term. The money will be used by a consortium - including Barratt Developments, Crest-Nicholson, Stewart-Milne, H + H Celcon, Oxford Brookes University and the BRE - to build demonstration homes to the energy/carbon standards of Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes using energy efficiency measures alone, without on-site renewables.

These homes will be built and sold alongside existing homes, to test how homes will perform with ventilation, warmth and comfort levels. The results will provide valuable evidence to support the way that the zero carbon homes of the future are built.

In July, John Healey announced that a specialist task group would examine the energy efficiency metrics and standards that should be part of zero carbon homes. Following an intensive period of analysis and wider stakeholder engagement, the task group, co-ordinated by the Zero Carbon Hub, has recommended an energy efficiency standard based on the amount of energy used to provide space heating and cooling, per square metre of the home.

David Adams, Director of the Zero Carbon Hub and Chair of the Task Group said:

"The Task Group had to balance a wide variety of considerations in order to set an ambitious but achievable standard. These included environmental and consumer concerns and practical implications for design, cost and buildability.

"The Group believes its recommendations propose a sufficiently challenging target which is achievable with a variety of design approaches, enabling innovation and encouraging a high level of performance for the fabric of new homes."

Stewart Baseley, Executive Chairman of the Home Builders Federation, said:

"The Zero Carbon Hub has done a good job in a short time in considering what a future energy efficiency standard for new homes might look like. Its recommendations are broadly pragmatic: the technology required for delivery already largely exists. The industry will, however, need to assess the merits of specific delivery options and keep a close eye on the cost implications as part of the wider issue of ensuring the zero carbon policy is affordable."

John Healey and Communities Secretary John Denham are linking up this week in a departmental drive on climate change. On Thursday, John Denham will say that real progress on tackling climate change will only be made by harnessing the potential and vision that lies in local government. He will urge councils to be ambitious and innovative and grasp the opportunities that this challenge presents to deliver not just for their residents but to support the nation in driving down carbon emissions. He will pledge to work with those authorities already engaged in this agenda and encourage them to go further but also raise the bar for all authorities.

Notes to editors

1. The new energy efficiency standards will, subject to consultation in the forthcoming consultation on the Code for Sustainable Homes, be applied to all new homes from 2016. They recommend that the energy efficiency standard is 46 kilowatt-hours per square metre per year (kWh/m2/year) for semi-detached and detached homes and 39 kWh/m2/year for all other homes.

2. The task group has made a number of additional recommendations for further research and modelling to support the proposed energy standard. CLG will take these recommendations forward, in collaboration with the Zero Carbon Hub and other relevant research and industry bodies. One of the particular recommendations is that industry will need design guidance to support the standard. We will be working to take these ideas forward in conjunction with industry. More details on the standards and the work of the hub can be found here: www.zerocarbonhub.org (external link).

3. In many ways, a zero carbon home can be like any other new home:

• it can be built to have (overall) a traditional appearance or a modern appearance
• it can be built with conventional masonry - it doesn't have to use Modern Methods of Construction
• and it can have all the amenities that new homes enjoy today - for example, central heating, tumble dryers and all the gadgets occupants might typically choose to buy
• "zero carbon" is a concept that applies at point of build - we are not going to regulate through this policy how occupants live in them.

4. The energy efficiency standard means that new homes will be well insulated (walls, windows, ceiling, floor) and will not be draughty (ie air coming in from outside will come in because of deliberate ventilation rather than draughts from unintended gaps in walls, windows, etc.).

• There are lots of different combinations of walls, windows, construction details etc that can meet the standard. But, indicatively, think of an exterior masonry wall that has around 7 - 8 inches of glasswool insulation (approximately double that of a home built today) or 13 - 16 inches of mineral wool insulation in the attic (versus around 11 for a home built today)
• This does not mean that new homes will need to be mechanically ventilated or that the windows need to be triple-glazed or cannot be opened for ventilation. (But if builders think there's a market for mechanically ventilated homes, or for triple glazing, then that's up to them.)
• Keeping these homes warm in winter will require less energy (and therefore lower fuel bills) than a home built to today's standards. For example, the fuel bill of a typical semi-detached home built to the new standard would be around £140-150 lower per year.

5. A survey featured in the Times (Sat 14) showed that almost nine out of ten (87 per cent) supported new building regulations for all new homes to meet the highest level of insulation and use of renewables. The New Homes Marketing Board's recent YouGov study showed that the 'green factor' has climbed into the top three on the list of criteria that people would set for buying a new home. Eco factors are now more important than traditional benefits like value-for-money and convenient location.

6. Marks and Spencer and Tesco have made sustainability a core part of their business. There are good examples of non-domestic buildings already, including Defra's Lion House building in Alnwick with its wind turbines, biomass boiler and rain-water harvesting; and Howe Dell School in Hatfield which captures the heat of the sun on the playground's surface in the summer to heat the school during the winter.

7. Mr Healey announced the Government's commitment to the ambition for all new non-domestic buildings be zero carbon from 2019. A consultation document, published today, www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/newnondomesticconsult sets out policy principles and options for meeting this ambition.

8. A 'zero carbon' non-domestic building would be a highly energy efficient building, with low and zero carbon technologies used onsite to reduce the energy demand and emissions of the building as far as possible. But all the emissions expected to produced by the building over the course of the year need to be accounted for; since it is not physically possible to go net-zero onsite for most non-domestic building types, this means that developers will need to use offsite measures too. So the developer might also contribute towards (for example) a district heating scheme to help cut carbon emissions on a community scale. This is the same definition used for zero carbon homes.

9. The policy will reflect the important differences in non-domestic buildings, including the much wider variation in building types, locations, and uses, which can impact on both potential solutions and costs. The proposals include the principle that new non-domestic buildings should improve through an approach with differentiated targets, to reflect the different potential each type of building has for energy efficiency and for onsite levels of carbon abatement. The consultation seeks views on this approach, including the impact of proposals on the viability of developments for different sectors.

10. Non-domestic buildings often have greater potential for onsite renewables (e.g. more roof space) and to play a critical role in the viability of community heat or energy networks. Both of these are valuable, so decisions will need to be made - informed by this consultation and development of other evidence - about what balance of these opportunities to adopt. Onsite heat and electricity generation will also be eligible for financial assistance under Government incentive schemes for small-scale renewable generation, providing future income streams. It is also proposed that the same approach to measuring energy efficiency is used for non-domestic buildings, with more work to be done to decide how energy efficient different types of building should aim to be.

11. The consultation also sets out the Government's proposals for a work programme to make progress towards the non-domestic zero carbon goal. It will close on 26 February 2010.

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