The government is legally committed to an 80% carbon reduction by 2050 and with buildings the single largest contributor, the commercial property sector wants to explore the impact of the policies and instruments government is using to achieve this target. These include the Carbon Reduction Commitment, Energy Performance Certificates and the Green Deal.
In its recently published 2013 Progress Report to Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change suggested an assessment of non-residential low-carbon policies to see how they are working. The Green Construction Board and the Green Property Alliance have responded by jointly commissioning Deloitte to produce a report.
The Deloitte team will be led by Jon Lovell, director in sustainability at Deloitte Real Estate. He said he would be “taking a helicopter view of the aggregate impact of the regulatory and fiscal framework”.
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Green Property Alliance chairman Bill Hughes, who is managing director of Legal & General Property, said: “It is in the industry and government’s interests to ensure that laws and taxes designed to elicit energy and carbon efficient behaviours are achieving their objectives, not to mention those of the wider economy. In taking a broad view of the framework for carbon incentives and penalties, this project may also illuminate opportunities to influence energy efficient behaviour that we had not previously discerned.”
Funding for the project has been provided by the Association of British Insurers, the Association of Real Estate Funds, British Council for Offices, British Council of Shopping Centres, British Property Federation, Investment Property Forum, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Urban Land Institute, and match-funded by the Green Construction Board.
Business minister Michael Fallon, who is co-chair of the Green Construction Board, said: “I look forward to seeing the outcome of this work. Through the Green Construction Board and the Construction Leadership Council, we are putting a lot of focus on the potential for growth in low carbon and sustainable construction.”
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