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This month the Government begins a new consultation to identify the best carbon-busting improvements to the UK’s existing building stock.

Is it just me, or are you also getting that sense of déjà vu all over again? Is there really such disagreement and controversy over what needs to be done, or how, that we need yet more consultation (see recent policy announcements below)?

In fact, the opposite is true. There is an extraordinarily high degree of consensus. When it comes to making big impacts on the UK’s carbon emissions, everyone agrees that we must have a range of mutually reinforcing policies and programmes to tackle the existing stock, and there’s no real dispute about the ways to do it.

The technical solutions

At the technical level for example, the best improvements for energy inefficient homes are generally judged on their cost effectiveness and accessibility. These pretty much boil down to better insulation (loft, walls, floors, tanks and pipes), draught proofing, secondary and double glazing, A-rated boilers and improved heating systems, wider use of heating controls, efficient lighting and efficient appliances. Micro-generation technologies (solar hot water systems, ground source heat pumps, photovoltaics and the like) can also help in the right places, and community wide CHP systems offer the opportunity for highly cost effective improvements on a larger scale.

Frankly, I hope this latest study will be the last word on the subject. No more talk, please

Dr David Strong

So no great surprises there. Similarly, the favoured ways to encourage a green refurbishment and retrofit of existing buildings are already well known. We’re talking about a package of measures, mainly financial, to act as an incentive to action.

Policy steps

The options include changes to VAT to encourage more refurbishment, more capital allowances and various tax-neutral rebates associated with stamp duty, council tax, business rates or corporation tax to reward the implementation of improvement measures recommended in an EPC or DEC. Most people support obligations on energy suppliers, minimum carbon standards for building work and consequential improvements, and targeted support for people in fuel poverty. Wrap it all up with more joined-up Government (which leads by example), plus much better communication and advice to achieve genuine sustainability, and there you have it.

Nobody is really expecting many new ideas to emerge this summer. Using the UK-GBC to run this consultation is probably just the quickest way to get a strategy written, given the shortage of resource at Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG). But what we need most is the political will to implement even these basics.

So frankly, I hope this latest study will be the last word on the subject. No more talk, please. The Government has shown strong leadership in its development of policies for new homes, schools and commercial buildings. Now is the time to get moving on implementing a bold strategy for the existing stock.