Last week, the Government confirmed within the 'Fixing the Foundations' productivity report its intention not to proceed with the zero carbon buildings policy, which was initially announced in 2007. However, in their rush to remove restrictions for businesses the government risks upsetting not only the public but the very businesses that they are trying to unburden.


As a result, there will be no uplift, as previously expected, to Part L of the Building Regulations during 2016 and both the 2016 zero carbon homes target and the 2019 target for non-domestic zero carbon buildings will be dropped, including the Allowable Solutions programme. therefore undoing many, many years of forward investment in sustainable development.

Commenting on the government’s announcement, CIOB Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager Eddie Tuttle said; “Leaders in the construction industry have invested heavily over the past few years in expectation of targets for zero carbon homes and zero carbon buildings being put into place. After planning to implement these changes for so long, removing them could well undermine the manufacturing base and discourage future investment.

As acknowledged in their Guide to the Built Environment, (see link below) building more homes is a priority – "and we" continued Tuttle "recognise that other measures announced in the productivity plan will help to achieve this. But stripping back housing standards to do so sacrifices build quality and, in this case, it means occupiers of these homes will be spending more money and emitting more CO2 emissions. While we accept that the definition of zero carbon, and indeed the term ‘zero carbon’, is by no means perfect, rationalising it would have been preferable over simply scrapping it."

Over the next few weeks we will bring more insight into the ramifications not only for the construction industry but also a support services across the UK and wider afield that will be affected by this narrow-sighted government policy.

Link: http://policy.ciob.org/