Focus on the wallflowers

By John Beddington
Published: January 26 2009 02:00

Buildings are the wallflowers of the climate change problem. While protesters storm airports and leader writers argue about nuclear power or windfarms, the places where we live, work and play are quietly responsible for more than half of all the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. To have any chance of meeting our commitment to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by the middle of the century we will need to bring this unglamorous sector into the limelight.
Much of the answer lies in low-tech, high-efficiency insulation. Although the government has imposed strict regulations on new-build, the biggest challenge will be to cut emissions from our existing, inefficient edifices. Retrofitting the UK's entire building stock will require construction skills on an unprecedented scale.
Last year, the Government Office of Science, which I head, produced a major report* showing that the need to rein in emissions from our buildings will affect businesses at every level.
The biggest changes will come in the construction industry, for which business models will need a radical overhaul. For instance, site developers generally retain an interest only during the period of construction or refurbishment and the subsequent sale, giving them no particular encouragement to ensure high energy efficiency or low carbon emissions once buildings are in use. If some of the long-term returns from improved efficiency accrued to developers, they would have an incentive to change.
The government will also need to provide new incentives, backed up with regulation. The first step should be a significant improvement in subsidies and tax rebates, followed by clear signals that the next three to five years will see new mandatory regulations. The government also needs to look at confused or contradictory rules. For instance, the difference between VAT on refurbishment and on new buildings can make it more cost-effective for developers to demolish and rebuild rather than refit.
Given the scale of the task, it will be essential to ensure building work really does provide the improvements in efficiency we need.
One way would be for the sector to develop new accreditation schemes to establish liability for poor quality work. Another would be to build incentives for innovations such as local-energy generation into building insurance.
Incentives will also need to be realigned in the rental market. Premises rented by small- and medium-sized enterprises are a particular problem because energy management is not a priority for either tenant or landlord. Here, the answer could lie in some form of "green lease" that would share the benefits of lower energy consumption.
The fact that cooling dominates over space heating in the commercial sector also needs urgent attention. Appliances and IT installations that produce less heat will be essential; but, paradoxically, improved insulation can have counter-productive effects in the commercial market by making for greater cooling requirements. Such paradoxes will demand "joined up" solutions and a culture of experimentation.
Finally, energy suppliers will also need to make significant changes to their business models. These might take the form of a changing relationship with customers, driven by new regulation. For instance, energy companies could be mandated to provide services (lighting, warmth, entertainment) rather than units of energy.
Just as important for energy companies, our current system is poorly designed to deliver low-carbon emissions. Decentralised sources of low-carbon energy such as wind, solar, biomass, local heating networks and microgeneration require significant changes to achieve their full potential. All these would be excellent ways to reduce the emissions from our nation's buildings and all run up against the undeniable fact that our electricity is metered out by a very national grid. Electricity networks may also need to be extended and reinforced to support electric vehicles or an expansion of electric (rather than gas) heating.
Above all, we need to refocus attention on the dominant role that buildings play in the UK's greenhouse emissions. Buildings and spaces are at the heart of the problem, and need to be at the heart of the solution.
Professor John Beddington is Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government.
*Powering our Lives: Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment:
www.foresight.gov.uk
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009