Rising to the Refurbishment
Challenge By Dr Peter Bonfield, Chief Executive, BRE
Sustainable refurbishment is essential if we are to meet national targets for reducing carbon emissions – the UK is committed to an 80% reduction by 2050. Our homes account for 27% of the total carbon output. About 150 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are released each year from the housing stock, with older buildings contributing disproportionately
.
The energy performance of current housing must be dramatically improved if the UK is to meet its reduction target. Achieving this is crucial, not only to mitigating the effects of global warming, but also to avoiding spiralling household fuel bills that could put significantly more households in fuel poverty
.
This is a huge and difficult challenge but significant progress is already being made with demonstration projects such the BRE Victorian T
But delivering sustainable housing is a much easier proposition when you have a blank canvas to start with, as is the case of a new home. Existing homes, with their enormous variety of build methods and conditions, represent a much greater challenge.
Good policy making The Code is arguably exemplary policy making as it: • sets clear performance targets, • is underpinned by methodologies and measures that enable objective quantification of impacts and performance,
• embraces a range of environmental impacts, in addition to climate change, in a balanced way,
• sets a challenging, medium-term timeframe of progressively increasing targets up to 2016.
Importantly, the Code is not prescriptive of the solutions needed, but is clear on performance level requirements and how they are quantified. This enables innovative thinking and application – both prerequisites for delivering lower carbon construction.
errace and schemes
like Retrofit the Future, from which we are generating new knowledge. The Government’
s Green Deal also looks
set to transform the market by giving householders the financing they need to make the required changes to their homes. And we’ve learnt a lot from the new homes built to the demanding Code for Sustainable Homes…
Significant progress made on new homes In 2006 the Government introduced the Code for Sustainable Homes, which set out very challenging targets for new homes and a timeline in which these must be delivered. The first Code Level 6 homes (the 2016 target under the Code), which includes ‘zero net carbon’ amongst other environmental impact targets, was delivered on the BRE Innovation Park in 2007.
This was by no means easy and there is still a lot to learn about the best and most cost effective ways of achieving sustainable housing, but a number of developers and supply chains have been rising to the challenges and have learned a great deal about the underpinning principles of sustainable house building. These include careful product selection, good design, building (air) tight, ventilating effectively and incorporating renewable technologies into the mix. Also, a significant number of innovative materials products and technologies have been developed.
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Learning and innovation Progress compliant with the Code has been significant. The trial homes built on the BRE Innovation Park, and now out in the field, have experimented with a number of innovative solutions and provided invaluable learning. This has shown that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, but that delivering against the Code can be tailored to local requirements and business solutions. The Government, BRE and other private sector stakeholders have also learned a great deal on how well the Code functions. This is important in refining and improving it as the state of the art improves.
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