The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has today launched a new
inquiry considering the sustainability of the built environment.
A significant amount of construction is expected in the coming
decade to fulfil the Government’s target of building 300,000 new
homes a year. This is in addition to a recent relaxation of rules
around planning applications to demolish and rebuild vacant and
redundant residential and commercial buildings. There will also
need to be a huge retrofit programme for energy efficiency
improvements in up to 19 million homes as our committee has
recently highlighted.
Although the energy efficiency of a building is taken into
account during the design and build, assessing the embodied
carbon emissions of the construction is not required by current
Government policy. Embodied carbon is the carbon footprint of a
material, and in the case of this inquiry, the EAC is examining
the carbon footprint of constructing buildings and the
sustainability of the materials used.
The construction industry has an opportunity to champion
low-carbon building materials, bringing the sector in line with
the Government’s net zero ambitions. The Climate Change Committee
has previously recommended increasing the use of wood in
construction and developing policies to minimise the whole life
carbon impact of new buildings. As part of this inquiry, the EAC
will be considering progress against these recommendations. The
EAC has also recently taken evidence from producers using wool as
sustainable insulation – members are interested in this and
development of other innovative sustainable building products.
Environmental Audit Committee Chairman, Rt Hon MP, launching the inquiry said:
“For decades we have been constructing homes and
buildings with concrete and steel, with little thought to the
carbon footprint involved. While Government policy incentivising
a house-building boom could contradict its net zero ambitions,
there is an opportunity for innovation as we explore low-carbon
and sustainable building materials. Our new inquiry will consider
how we can decarbonise construction and the opportunities that
may arise, and I invite anyone with thoughts to submit
evidence.”
Terms of reference
The Committee is inviting written submissions, with a deadline of
Friday 7th May, to cover the following areas:
- To what extent have the Climate Change
Committee’s recommendations on decarbonising the structural
fabric of new homes been met?
- How can materials be employed to reduce
the carbon impact of new buildings, including efficient heating
and cooling, and which materials are most effective at reducing
embodied carbon?
- What role can nature-based materials play
in achieving the Government’s net zero ambition?
- What role can the planning system, permitted development and
building regulations play in delivering a sustainable built
environment? How can these policies incentivise developers to use
low carbon materials and sustainable design?
- What methods account for embodied carbon
in buildings and how can this be consistently monitored and
applied across the sector?
- Should the embodied carbon impact of
alternative building materials take into account the carbon cost
of manufacture and delivery to site, enabling customers to assess
the relative impact of imported versus domestically sourced
materials?
- How well is green infrastructure being
incorporated into building design and developments to achieve
climate resilience and other benefits?
- How should we take into account the use
of materials to minimise carbon footprint, such as use of water
harvesting from the roof, grey water circulation, separate foul
and surface water drainage systems, porous surfaces for
hardstanding, energy generation systems such as solar panels?
- How should re-use and refurbishment of
buildings be balanced with new developments?
- What can the Government do to incentivise
more repair, maintenance and retrofit of existing buildings?
Notes to editors:
- The EAC has this week published
its latest report of Energy
Efficiency in Existing Homes.
