Don't be defeatist: all new homes can be zero carbon by 2016

Prototype buildings may be expensive, but costs will come down substantially
Gareth Walton
The Guardian, Friday 12 December 2008

Chris Goodall is wrong to claim that there are "two problems" with the government's plan for all new homes to be zero carbon by 2016 (The 10 big energy myths, November 27).
The first problem, according to Goodall, is that "only about 1% of the housing stock is newly built each year [and] tighter building regulations have no effect on the remaining 99%". However, this doesn't mean that we should reduce the targets for new homes, as Goodall argues, but rather that we also need a meaningful policy to reduce emissions from existing homes.
Secondly, Goodall claims that "making a building zero carbon is extremely expensive", saying "the few prototype UK homes that have recently reached this standard have cost twice as much as conventional houses".
It is a mistake to assume, as Goodall does, that the cost of these prototypes will be representative of the cost of zero-carbon homes in 2016. It's like saying that mobile phones would always be the size and weight of a brick because the first ones were. Prototypes are by their very nature more expensive - the ones Goodall refers to include significant one-off costs for initial design work.
Recent research found the cost of a zero-carbon home to be significantly cheaper than he quoted, with further cost reductions of up to 26% by the time zero-carbon standards are mandatory for new homes.
In addition, the prototypes Goodall mentions had to use the most expensive renewable energy technology - solar pv - because their site wasn't suitable for wind power, which can be much cheaper. They were also single dwellings, which is usually the most expensive scale in which to achieve zero carbon. Another recent study put the cost of achieving zero carbon using site-wide combined heat and power in a larger development at £6,800 per house, a far cry from Goodall's doubling in build costs.
He also fails to consider the savings from energy bills, savings which will become increasingly significant if energy costs rise. Nor does he include the societal benefits of the reductions in carbon emissions from new homes, costed at £70/tonne by the government, which should not be ignored.
This homes policy is not perfect (how often do you see a government policy that is?) but, as a rare example of a government taking a longer view than just the next electoral cycle and setting a target that actually reflects the scale of the problem, it deserves to be supported. It doesn't require us to achieve zero-carbon homes right now, but takes a stepped approach to achieving its aim, with lower interim targets for 2010 and 2013 - we should be focusing our energy on achieving these.
Inaccurate criticism runs the risk of creating a false belief that we can't achieve zero-carbon homes by 2016. The more we say it can't be done, the greater the risk that it won't. These homes may cost more, but the cost of not achieving them is even greater.
• Gareth Walton is director of the Devon Sustainable Building Initiative, an independent not-for-profit organisationgareth.walton@dsbi.org.uk