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Iain Cram
Director, Perth Office
Governments north and south of the border are
beginning to turn vague aspirations of changing
attitudes towards energy use into concrete
policies and regulations. In the past six
months, new planning policies, building
standards and design codes have been put in
place which will start to have an impact upon
the way we build and heat our buildings in the
future.
Clearly this is an ongoing process, as the
insulation standards of buildings have been
increasing steadily in the past 25 years. What
is new however is the level of political
interest in the subject and the extent to which
various legislative controls are being used to
drive clients, architects and the construction
industry towards ever more efficient and
sustainable design.
The fact that Gordon Brown’s first
statement on policy as ‘Prime Minister in
waiting’ was to announce the creation of five
new eco-towns, shows that the political classes
have caught on and realised that pushing the
green agenda is a safe bet.
Conventionally the building standards
are used to drive the energy efficiency of
buildings, but now there are additional policies
in effect. In England the new Code for
Sustainable Homes only applies to |
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affordable or Government funded housing, but is
expected to become a requirement for all housing
in the near future. It gives housing a star
rating from one (*) to six (******) based upon a
wide range of criteria; from CO2
emissions and water consumption to the
materials used and the waste produced. The
Scottish equivalent (the Energy Performance
Certificate) is already compulsory, having been
introduced on May 1st 2007 and will result in
all new houses being labelled A to G in a manner
familiar to anyone who has recently bought a
fridge or freezer.
These ratings are going to become part of our
lives over the coming years, as they start to
inform potential house purchasers as to the fuel
bill they can expect to be faced with, and will
in future be required for existing homes.
Fortunately they can be displayed discretely in
the boiler cupboard and don’t need to be pasted
on the front of the house. The Energy
performance Certificate will not have the
breadth of the English star rating, being based
simply on CO2
emissions, but it will be simpler to
assess and less subjective.
In March 2007, the Scottish Executive brought
into effect SPP6 ‘renewable energy’ which has
included amongst the policies on wind farms and
hydro schemes, a quite unambiguous directive to
local authorities that they should use the
planning system to require all new developments
to improve on the Building Standards Minimums by
15%. This is likely to drive standards beyond
that which can be achieved by improving
efficiency alone and is clearly intended to
focus attention on the fuel source.
It is about to get very difficult to sell a
house or development as an eco-project as the
standard level of housing on the market is
catching up fast. Eco-homes are about to start
arriving in significant numbers, and we will
have to wait and see if the renewable industry
can keep up. |
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