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Property sector: time for Government to deliver on green buildings

Some of the biggest names in the property sector have today called on the Government to honour its commitments on energy efficiency ratings, as MPs prepare to debate the Energy Bill in the House of Commons.

Senior industry figures have sent an open letter to the Prime Minister and other senior ministers, calling for the Energy Bill to be used to legislate on Display Energy Certificates (DECs), which provide an A-G energy efficiency rating for buildings. The certificates are currently mandatory for public sector buildings, but are not compulsory in the private sector. Non-domestic buildings currently account for up to 17% of the UK's carbon emissions.

The letter, initiated by the British Property Federation and the UK Green Building Council, argues that without legislation, private property owners could be disadvantaged by opting to display their energy rating. Signatures to the letter include Francis Salway, Chief Executive, of Land Securities, Dan Labbad, Chief Executive Officer EMEA, Lend Lease and Bill Hughes, Managing Director of Legal & General Property.

Paul King, Chief Executive of the UK Green Building Council said:

“It’s very simple – if you don’t know how much energy you are using, you can’t manage it. We’ve simply no idea how our buildings up and down the country are actually performing, so mandatory A-G ratings are the crucial first step in helping businesses understand and reduce their energy use.

“The Prime Minister signed up to this in the Carbon Plan in March, and the Energy Bill is the obvious place to put down the necessary legislation.

Government needs to listen to the property industry – this is something that will cut carbon, cut energy bills and create new market opportunities in green technologies.”

Liz Peace, Chief Executive of the British Property Federation said:

“Savings of between 5 and 30 per cent can be made through simple no and low cost changes to the way a building is managed and occupied. A rating based on actual energy use will highlight these opportunities, which would otherwise remain hidden.

“We see the introduction of certification as being complementary to the Green Deal, also within the Energy Bill, being discussed by MPs today. DECs would ensure that any improvements to buildings would deliver on their expected energy savings.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

The full letter and full list of signatories can be viewed here.

The Carbon Plan, published in March 2011, was signed by the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Climate Change and said that DECs would be extended to commercial buildings by October 2012. The document can be found here: http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/What%20we%20do/A%20low%20carbon%20UK/1358-the-carbon-plan.pdf

Responsible for up to 17% of the UK’s carbon emissions, the UK’s non-domestic buildings – from schools to shopping centres, hospitals to offices - must play a central role in helping meet our legally binding national carbon targets.

Display Energy Certificates (DECs) provide an A-G rating for operational energy use and are currently mandatory for public buildings over 1000m2, but are not mandatory for private sector buildings.

There is an A-G rating currently required for commercial buildings, the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) but it does not measure operational energy use, it measured design performance only. This information in isolation is not enough to drive improvement.

The extension of Display Energy Certificates (DECs) to private sector buildings was one of the key recommendations made in the recent UK-GBC recent Task Group Report on Existing Non-Domestic Buildings which can be found here.

The extension of Display Energy Certificates (DECs) to private sector buildings was also recommended in the recent Low Carbon Construction IGT report by the Government’s own Chief Construction Advisor, which can be found here.

The UK Green Building Council and the British Property Federation are recommending an amendment to the Energy Bill which would be a simple enabling clause, giving the Secretary of State the power at a future point in time to initiate a roll-out of DECs to the private sector. It would require all the relevant details (phasing of roll-out, nature of the requirements etc) to be dealt with in secondary legislation.

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