The missing piece

Sustainability may be international headline news this week due to the climate change conference in Copenhagen, but UK housing professionals would settle right now far more straightforward than a deal on tackling global carbon emissions.

The UK government has been puzzling over just what defines a zero-carbon house since December last year and is yet to spill the beans.

Neil Cutland, executive director of Inbuilt Consulting is one of the people involved in the lengthy consultation process and is still waiting for the results. ‘We’ve heard [by autumn], ‘before Christmas’, we’ve heard ‘by the end of the year’ - it would be hard to find an observer that is not disappointed,’ he says.

The debate is important because it will have a huge impact on the development plans of the social housing sector and dictate what it can afford to do. ‘The sooner we get the result the better because we need to get on,’ explains Nicholas Doyle, head of sustainable development at Places for People.

At its most basic, the debate will also change the way people’s homes and streets are powered and heated. So are there any firm signs about what the definition will contain and when is it likely to be published?

One thing is certain: from 2016, every house and flat built in the UK will have to reach the zero-carbon standard, one of the toughest for new build in the world - and the social housing world has to get there a year earlier.

It might sound like there would be little room for debate about the definition of a zero-carbon home. For starters, a house that emits no CO2 will not consume fossil fuels, such as natural gas or electricity from coal-fired power stations. To do that, it will need to be very well-insulated and will use renewable energy to supply heating, hot water and electricity.

However, it has become obvious that the original plan to make each house zero-carbon is extremely expensive, even unworkable.

Mr Cutland was on the UK Green Building Council zero-carbon task force. ‘Our conclusion was that to make zero-carbon [only] onsite just wouldn’t be practical -there were a large number of house types that just would not comply,’ he says.

A block of flats might not have the roof space to fit photovoltaic or solar thermal panels on. It is very costly to fit a biomass boiler for just two homes.

For the past year announcements about zero-carbon homes have been coming out at a tantalising trickle and no one seems to know when the definition will be complete.

Uncertain future

Christmas was the promised date for the final piece of the puzzle but the Communities and Local Government department seems to be the only ones still keeping faith with that deadline - although a spokesperson gave the department considerable room for manouevre. ‘There will be an announcement [on zero-carbon] in the near future - before Christmas or in the new year,’ she stated.

Some decisions have already been taken. In July the government stated that 70 per cent of the CO2 cuts have to come from the energy efficiency of the building and from ‘onsite’ renewable energy on the dwelling itself.

It is the remaining chunk of carbon reductions on which the debate is now focused. The rest will be topped up to the compulsory 100 per cent cut will be reached with what the government calls ‘allowable solutions’ - and on top of this there must be an extra allowance for carbon emissions generated by using electrical appliances such as toasters, kettles and hairdryers, which aren’t included in building regulations.

These allowable solutions could give house builders massive leeway in how they meet the standard because they don’t necessarily mean fitting technology directly to individual homes.

There could, for example, be a district heating system. There could be a large wind turbine in the fields behind the house or a set of photovoltaic panels added to the school and doctor’s surgery down the road. More ambitiously, the house builder could pay for some of the surrounding houses to be retrofitted with green technologies, so the carbon emissions saved by them compensates for the extra carbon emissions of the new homes. More controversially, a developer could invest in a wind farm in Scotland and the resulting CO2 cuts could balance out a new housing estate in Surrey.

Among social landlords, retrofitting of existing stock in the surrounding area is the most popular, as that would immediately affect the lives of tenants and the greenness of the social housing stock. ‘We have the opportunity to make it something really positive, which is retrofitting existing buildings,’ says Mr Doyle. Alan Yates, director of regeneration at Accord Housing Association agrees. ‘Our favourite solution would be a retrofit solution for existing stock - it means a higher carbon reduction per pound spent than code six [of the code for sustainable homes].’

Once out, the list will be added to and adapted as new technology emerges. ‘Allowable solutions must evolve and the list will be a living list. You’re excluding innovation if you say that the list is static,’ says Mr Cutland.

These allowable solutions will also be tough to administer, police and measure, which is why the consultation is a long process, according to Clive Turner, information manager at the Zero Carbon Hub. ‘This is a work in progress and we need to keep an open mind. It’s a medium-term thing.’

However, many people are unhappy at the time it is taking to come up with the list of solutions. Uncertainty is bad for landlords, developers and the green technologies market. ‘Everyone should be analysing their development pipeline but at the moment they are trying to analyse a moving feast,’ Mr Doyle explains.

Once the list of allowable solutions is out and the final part of the puzzle is in place - the hard work can start. ‘Then we can then start on the supply chain and working out how we’re going to pay for it,’ adds Mr Doyle.

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