Getting Down to Zero

Flaws in the government’s zero-carbon vision have forced ministers back to the drawing board. Is there a realistic way forward? Clare Goff investigates.

Zero-carbon homes should be a no-brainer for house builders. Stamp duty relief and low or non-existent fuel bills on homes that reach the zero-carbon standard are a tempting proposition to homebuyers in these zero-credit times.

Currently only 18 homes in England meet the government’s zero-carbon requirement for stamp duty exemption, out of a housing stock of 21 million. By 2016 it will be mandatory for all new homes to be zero carbon, so why are more house builders not taking up the challenge?

A few answers were found at the government’s Zero Carbon Hub consultation on a cold February afternoon in Leeds. An audience of developers tried to get to grips with the government’s plans to redefine a zero-carbon home, following a report by the UK Green Building Council in 2008 which found that the current definition was not achievable on up to 80% of new homes.

As they grappled with thermal bridging and the benefits of biomass combined heat and power (CHP,) one audience member received the loudest applause of the day when he called for a stay of execution on the DCLG’s ambitious zerocarbon homes target: ‘The values and margins are not there. It’s not the prized cow to milk.’

With house building stalled or abandoned, developers can be forgiven for having more urgent priorities than reducing carbon emissions on the properties they build. Government figures show that reaching new minimum standards of carbon compliance costs between 11% and 31% more than building homes to current regulations. Following the consultation a number of new ‘allowable solutions’ will make zero-carbon easier (see box, p18), but reaching the standard will still be a significant challenge for an oldfashioned, carbon-heavy construction industry.

Few believe the road ahead will be easy. Mark Thompson, a commercial surveying manager at the National House-Building Council, which regulates house building, compared compliance with the zero-carbon target to ‘asking us to run a marathon before we can walk’.

Part of the problem, say detractors, is ‘eco-bling’. In order to meet even the new relaxed standards of zero carbon (currently up for consultation), house builders will need to invest in high-end technology aimed at conserving and generating new and renewable energy. Housing developments eager to show off their eco credentials boast solar panels, wind turbines, biomass boilers and green roofs. But currently the costs (in both monetary and carbon terms) of installing, using and disposing of sophisticated technology that is in many cases untested often counteracts the carbon savings that such technology aims to achieve.

Micro wind turbines, as paraded on David Cameron’s London rooftop, have now been withdrawn from the shelves of B&Q after it emerged that average windspeeds within a London suburb are unlikely to be able to turn the blades, let alone generate electricity.

Biomass has taken its place as the eco technology du jour, but the long-term sustainability of biofuels is still in question; the UK already relies on woodchips and pellets imported from China and Scandinavia.

Newbuild schools attempting to reach the zero-carbon target have learned the hard way that the maintenance of green roofs and biomass boilers is unmanageable within the average school budget, and have watched as eco-bling not only failed to reduce carbon but led to increased energy bills. The chair of the government’s zero-carbon task force for schools last year admitted it would be ‘bloody difficult’ to deliver schools with no carbon footprint by 2016.

Finding a realistic path

Meanwhile the backlash from the housing industry is gaining strength. Representatives from the social housing sector – now legally obliged to cut carbon emissions by 25% in all new homes – took a petition to Downing Street calling for this eco standard to be applied across the private house building sector too in order to bring down the costs of energy efficiency products.

Peter Wells, a director at architectural practice Barefoot & Gilles, is working on one of the few sustainable affordable housing projects in the country, Greengauge Homes in Norfolk. It uses tried and tested technologies which add only 5% higher costs than similar projects, but it still falls short of the government’s zero-carbon ambition, which makes up part of Level 6 of the Sustainable Homes Code.

‘My gut reaction is that the chance of us building greater than Level 4 [of the code] is highly unlikely even with housing association funding,’ he says.

It’s easy to dismiss the gripes of house builders feeling the pressure of yet more regulations. The reality is that housing will need to play a major part if the government is to meet its target of cutting the UK’s overall carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.

No one can accuse the government of lack of ambition in its sustainable building plans – from its zero-carbon target for all new homes and schools by 2016 to the ecotown proposals.

Cabe, the government’s advisory body on architecture and urban design, says challenging targets and proposals have generated much-needed learning and debate and have accelerated movement towards zero carbon.

‘We have ten years to address runaway climate change. In that context it would be hard to back away from the zero-carbon target. We need to put a line in the sand far ahead,’ says Matt Bell, director of campaigns and education at Cabe.

The leap from high to low-carbon living to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change will require radical adaptation on the part of every industry and individual. The twin prongs of regulation and technology will be vital as we learn to cast off our high carbon lives. But when it comes to our homes, change must be embedded gently if it is to last.

Installing catalytic convertors in the 1980s had an immediate impact on the levels of toxic emissions belched out by car engines. Reducing carbon emissions from our homes is a more complex matter.

Homes are defined by the people living and working within them, and it’s often difficult to predict how people will interact within their own spaces. As schools and housing developers have already discovered, it takes time to adjust to living with new concepts of heating, new energy systems and bird-sized baths.

Terry Keech, sustainability partner at consultancy Calfordseaden, has front line experience of how the tickbox approach to sustainability is playing out across new housing developments trying to abide by the Code for Sustainable Homes. ‘Several sites meeting the highest level of the code have all these things hanging off them that don’t work. Technologies are being foisted upon us without seeing if it is the right or more effective way to go.’

Going down the PassiveHaus route could be a more thoughtful way to proceed, he suggests. Popular in Germany, low energy is integrated within the design of the home, rather than tagged on top.

As we move forward, eco-kit is being ditched in favour of low-tech solutions that consider the inhabitants and the types of low-carbon dwellings we may all soon live in. ‘It’s about basic questions like the orientation of the building, passive design, whether people need to drive to school,’ says Matt Bell.

The Carbon Challenge is a government-funded testbed aimed at generating learning around creating sustainable living environments. Two developments in Bristol and Peterborough will be built to the highest level of the government’s code, Level 6. Architects and builders working on development briefs for the sites have learned perhaps the most valuable lesson when preparing for our lowcarbon future: established principles are no longer valid. Jayne Lomas, senior regeneration manager at the Homes and Communities Agency, says the housing industry is relearning house building and design from a new set of first principles.

‘We need to throw away the design book, look at the whole supply chain and how to integrate it. Developers working with us have come up with a whole new set of house types.’

Establishing the fact that we know nothing is a good place to start on the road to our new low-carbon world, and one that it would be helpful for government bodies to admit to as we feel our way forward.

Ambitious targets are laudable, but when the route towards them is too difficult and unknown, stakeholders begin to jump off. The developer of one of the remaining eco-town projects, in Marston Vale, Bedfordshire, last month withdrew its bid to build the town. Controversy has surrounded the eco-towns programme from the start, with serious concerns raised about their sustainability and ability to deliver green affordable housing. The Sustainable Development Commission is unwilling to make any recommendations – good or bad – on the eco-towns programme, saying it is too ‘contentious’.

The 2016 zero-carbon homes and schools targets were set before the technical and financial plausibility of achieving those aims had been assessed. Even with the proposed changes to the zero-carbon homes definition, reaching it will create a huge amount of unnecessary cost and stress that could distract from, and indeed be counterproductive to, simpler and more cost-effective attempts at carbon reduction.

‘There is an increasing amount of sustainable legislation, which is a good aim but most of the industry feel it is the wrong approach,’ says Neil May, chair of the Good Homes Alliance, which advocates baby steps and simplicity to find the most sustainable path.

Switching the focus

So, while house builders are committed to a low-carbon future, many are questioning the government’s route towards it. DCLG has said zero carbon too many times to back away from its target now, but a simpler focus on radical energy reductions within homes and on monitoring technology and learning what works would have a greater chance of success than an enormous leap into the unknown of zero carbon. In the meantime the focus should shift to the 21 million homes already in existence and which will still account for 75% of our housing stock in 2050.

Last month plans were announced to bring existing housing stock up to 21st century standards of energy efficiency by 2030. Dubbed the Great British Refurb, seven million homeowners will be given financial help to update their homes with energy-saving solutions.

The Association for the Conservation of Energy is worried the definition of ‘insulation’ is shifting as the government attempts to meet its own targets, just as zero-carbon homes metamorphosed as the technical and financial reality of achieving them became clear.

Our low-carbon future is as yet unknown. Targets will help us get there but open and honest talking and learning will make the route towards it a lot smoother.

This article originally appeared in the March 2009 edition of NewStart Magazine, the independent resource for regeneration, economic development and sustainable communities and is reproduced here by kind permission of the publisher

Click this link to download a PDF of the brochure (1.7MB)

The pdf also includes the features:

• The Big Picture: Tony Hawkhead argues why a diet of tough targets and regulations is needed to keep us focused on the long game
• The Expert: Terry Keech explains the difficulties involved in reaching zero carbon
• Consultations and alternatives: What is a zero-carbon home?
• Illustrations: Greengauge Homes in Norfolk: using tried and tested technologies to keep the building costs down while cutting emissions.