The Construction Industry Council (CIC), the umbrella body for various professional bodies and institutions, has responded to the government’s Future Homes and Buildings Standards consultations.
The CIC gave its support for the plans to switch away from fossil-fuel heating but was concerned that the options set out in the consultation were not ambitious enough.
It expressed disappointment that the measurement of embodied carbon is not being considered as part of the consultation, given that embodied carbon could make up 70% of a new home’s whole-life carbon
CIC’s response to the consultation said that the construction industry needs government support to create a workforce that is sufficiently capable of taking on the work. It said that there was a need for a parallel government strategy to ensure that appropriate, accredited and trained people are available to properly oversee the installation and maintenance of energy saving measures such as heat pumps.
The CIC also says that the state should set down guidance for tradespeople, for designers and for consumers (home owners) on the available technologies.
The Future Homes Standard and Future Buildings Standard is part of government’s plan to improving the energy efficiency and reducing the carbon emissions of new homes and non-domestic buildings. The consultation set out the plans for achieving the standard including technical proposals for changes to the Building Regulations, the associated approved document guidance and calculation methods. As well as covering new homes and non-domestic buildings some sections are relevant to existing buildings including those on material change of use, real-world performance of homes and Part O, which addresses overheating.
Stephen Hodder, chair of the CIC’s climate change committee, said: “This standard is likely to be government’s legacy and having waited so long we need to ensure that we get it right as we could be building or converting millions of homes under the proposals. These homes are likely to see the worst impacts of climate change and will need to be robust and resilient though this and therefore they need to be future-proof or at least adaptable.”
Tony Crook, chair of CIC’s housing panel, added: “We support high quality retrofit and this extends to materials change of use, which can also mean less construction waste and lower whole-life carbon. But homes created in this way need to be safe, sustainable and nurture sustainable communities we do not need homes that will be obsolete in a decade’s time because the structure is unsound and the conversion has been carried out in a way that puts residents’ health at risk.
“Inactivity on energy efficiency has been costly for consumers in terms of rising bills yet robust measures to fix improve this could also help the public purse with BRE reporting that investments to improve some of the worst quality homes could save the NHS around £1.4bn in first year treatment costs alone. We urge government to seize the opportunity to create a positive housing legacy.”
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