Planning, building and the environment

Code for Sustainable Homes

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On the 27 February 2008 the Government confirmed a mandatory rating against the Code will be implemented from 1 May 2008.

The Code measures the sustainability of a new home against nine categories of sustainable design, rating the 'whole home' as a complete package. The Code uses a 1 to 6 star rating system to communicate the overall sustainability performance of a new home. The Code sets minimum standards for energy and water use at each level and, within England, replaces the EcoHomes scheme, developed by the Building Research Establishment (BRE).

The Code will provide valuable information to home buyers, and offer builders a tool with which to differentiate themselves in sustainability terms.

Guidance

The Department has published a Greener Homes for the Future Leaflet which highlights what the Code is, how it works and what it means to have a mandatory rating for new homes.

Guidance on how to comply with the Code can be found in these publications.

On 4 June 2008 we published a Statement and Addendum  to The Code for Sustainable Homes Technical Guide - April 2008  publication, which highlighted a small number of amendments that have been made to the most recent version of the Code Technical Guidance. Amongst these are corrections and clarifications to a number of references which inadvertently suggested that changes had been made in the Code relating to compliance with the energy performance requirement.

In November 2007 we published an Impact Assessment which was part of the  Housing and Regeneration Bill Impact Assessment paper , that analysed the costs and benefits of introducing mandatory ratings against the Code which included updated modelling data on the costs of building Code homes.  Further details of the cost modelling undertaken can be found in the report  Cost Analysis of The Code for Sustainable Homes: Final report .

Background

On 13 December 2006, the Code for Sustainable Homes - a new national standard for sustainable design and construction of new homes was launched. Since April 2007 the developer of any new home in England could choose to be assessed against the Code.

On 16 November 2007 the Government confirmed that it would be proceeding with the implementation of mandatory ratings against the Code for all new homes following responses to the consultation on making a rating mandatory.

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