World Green Building Week (9–13 September) will see the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) lead calls for the global building and construction sector to accelerate its transition towards a more sustainable future.
With ‘Reduce, Electrify, Adapt’ announced as key themes for the campaign, we can expect buildings’ use of energy to be at the heart of green buildings discussions in the UK. Here we explain why.
The challenge
The built environment is directly responsible for 25% of the UK’s carbon emissions, according to the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC). This figure accounts for buildings’ operational carbon emissions and the embodied carbon involved in construction processes and materials.
Furthermore, according to a December 2023 report from the UKGBC, the UK’s built environment must decarbonise almost twice as fast as it currently is by 2025 if it is to support the government’s 2050 net zero target.
Reduce
By reducing demand for energy through highly efficient building services, it follows that carbon emissions can be cut. For example, lighting is typically responsible for between 10 and 20 per cent of a building’s energy use. By fitting efficient LED-based lighting systems, energy savings can be made.
Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) are already placing pressure on the commercial sector to improve energy efficiency of existing buildings:
- Since 1 April 2023, commercial property landlords have been unable to continue to let commercial property that has an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating lower than E.
- Commercial property landlords have until 2028 (pushed back from an initial 2027 target) to improve the EPC of their assets to a C rating.
- A minimum EPC of B will be required by 2030.
Electrify
According to BRE Group, some 88% of homes in the UK are still heated by natural gas. It follows that a move towards the electrification of heating for homes will be key to decarbonising buildings.
According to the Climate Change Committee’s latest report, the low-carbon technology needed for the transition is available, though it is still off track. Major action must be taken in the next few years to accelerate the progress needed to meet net zero goals. Approximately 10% of existing homes in the UK will need to be heated by a heat pump by 2030, compared to only approximately 1% today.
The way electricity is procured for buildings also has a huge role to play in creating more sustainable future. Buildings are already responsible for over 60% of the UK’s national electricity demand.
The UKGBC has produced detailed guidance on Renewable Energy Procurement for stakeholders in the built environment which can be downloaded here.
Adapt
As the climate crisis intensifies, extreme weather events are becoming more common in the UK (and across the globe). It is vital that our buildings, and wider infrastructure, can be adapted to remain fit and resilient for the future.
The new government has already initiated the development of a 10-year infrastructure strategy aimed at modernising the UK’s transport and energy networks, which includes the ambition for a ‘clean energy’ grid by 2030.
With such a significant impact, it is critical that the built environment plays its part in delivering the transformative change needed to decarbonise our economy.
Campaigns like World Green Building Week serve as a reminder that a sustainable built environment is a critical solution to climate change, as well as helping to create resilient, thriving communities, and drive economic growth.
On the back of World Green Building Week, we’ll be keeping an eye out for key developments that overlap both the energy and built environment sectors.
