52 INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER: BUILDING REGULATIONS (PART F AND PART L) CONCLUDING SUMMARY How important are issues around reducing the carbon footprint of homes to your customers?


limate change is here. ll we can do now is reduce our carbon output to help minimise any further warming, and uplifting the housing sector will be a huge part of this.


geing standards have left the industry building homes that contribute far too highly to our carbon emissions, and it is past time that we utilise the alreadyeisting technologies available to remedy this.


hile our respondents looked towards the uplifts to art  and  as making a maor contribution to the ’s ourney to et ero and as a useful stepping stone towards more stringent standards, the maority epected, or have already eperienced, signifi cant diffi culty in meeting them  with rising costs a clear concern for many, as well as a lack of skills and both industry and buyer awareness.


nly time will tell how the sector copes as more proects come under the remit of these changes, but if this early data is indicative of what’s to come, the everhigher hurdles are going to come at an increasing cost for most smaller developers at the very least, which will only be passed on to consumers. n a time of both a housing and cost of living crisis, this study indicates that the overnment will need to do more in order to support builders and buyers to achieve its laudable environmental aims without doing more harm than good.


INDUSTRY VIEW


Finally, our interviewees considered how important the issues of climate are with their customers, and how this will impact the road to a greener future. John Dally of Hayfi eld Homes says that previously, issues


around reducing the carbon footprint of homes to their customers was but a “small factor.” He argues however that this is “rapidly increasing thanks to


fuel prices” and “rising bills.” Similarly, while “very few” of Springbourne Homes’ customers


“appear interested” in carbon footprints, Lee Harris notes that the cost of operation is now key, with the adoption of air source heat pumps “provoking interest.” Lastly – and unsurprisingly for the eco-builder – Sam Smart


of Stonewood partnerships says that the company fi nds these issues are “extremely important” to its customers, which he too says goes “hand in hand with rising energy costs.” “As more sustainable methods of construction become


available, they become more important to our customers,” concludes Smart. “As such, our USP is to deliver energy-effi cient sustainable homes, which are unrivalled in the industry at volume.”


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