Why new home builders are at the forefront of the drive to tackle climate crisis

The new homes sector in the UK is looking healthy. NHBC recently reported a 25% boost in UK new home registrations in 2021 while the Rightmove House Price index revealed the average price of property coming to market jumped by 1.7% (+£5,760) to £354,564 in March - another new record, passing £350,000 for the first time.

But the nature of new developments is changing fast, with an ever-sharper focus on energy efficiency in everything from the materials used to features such as fossil-fuel free heating and charging points for electrical cars. This is being driven from several quarters: consumer demand, government incentives and regulations, and industry commitment to making positive changes to combat climate crisis.

From the consumer point of view, recent research carried out by the Home Builders Federation (HBF) revealed just how important energy efficiency is to home buyers. Around three in four respondents (73%) to the HBF’s survey said they were worried about the energy performance of their current home, with around a quarter (24%) saying energy efficiency will be ‘crucial’ to their next home move.

The report - ‘Greener, Cleaner, Cheaper’ shows that UK residential developers are at the forefront of meeting public demand for more energy-efficient homes: ‘eco friendly’ and ‘having a good Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)’ were rated as the second and third most important factors respectively, behind ‘private outdoor space’.

And with more lenders beginning to offer green mortgages - such as lower interest rates for buyers of more energy efficient homes - and stricter requirements for landlords renting out domestic properties, HBF reported that home builders are urging lenders to go further, faster to assist homebuyers in making the right environmental choice. It pointed out that factoring into mortgage calculations the lower bills paid by new build buyers would enable even further savings to be made by buyers.

A further aspect of HBF’s research revealed the pivotal relationship that the new homes industry can play in driving the UK’s burgeoning electric vehicle industry as 71% of respondents said that they would be more persuaded to buy an electric car if their house came with an electric vehicle charging station.

All of this comes as Government pressure for energy efficiency increases. At the end of last year the UK Government announced rules that require new homes and buildings in England to produce significantly less CO2. Under the new regulations, CO2 emissions from new build homes must be around 30% lower than current standards and emissions from other new buildings, including offices and shops, must be reduced by 27%.

Heating and powering buildings currently makes up 40% of the UK’s total energy use.

Installing low carbon technology, such as solar panels and heat pumps, and using materials in a more energy efficient way to keep in heat, will help cut emissions - lowering the cost of energy bills for families and helping deliver the UK’s climate change ambitions.

The Welsh Government is also focused on driving improvements in housing design to meet the climate change challenge. In 2020 the Welsh Government set out building regulation proposals to significantly increase energy efficiency standards for all new homes, aiming to introduce a 37% reduction in carbon emissions for new dwellings (compared with current standards) to come into effect from this year. In addition, all new homes will need to be future-proofed, to make it easier to retrofit low carbon heating systems.

The 37% reduction is intended as a stepping stone towards changes due in 2025, when it is expected that new homes should produce a minimum of 75% less CO2 emissions than ones built to current requirements. The aim is to shift to low-carbon heat sources, such as heat pumps, for heating and hot water. This means that new buildings constructed to the standard will be able to become carbon neutral over time as the electricity grid and heat networks decarbonise. The government’s early warning is intended to allow the industry to scale up capacity and skills ready for 2025.

Industry bodies are responding with growing urgency to the climate crisis. In March, the

The British Property Federation (BPF) announced it is developing plans for a Net Zero Pledge that will unite its members in tackling carbon emissions from the built environment and achieving net-zero by 2050.

The announcement is designed to support all companies in the UK property sector - from global institutions to start-ups - in sharing ideas, best-practice and learnings in real-time to accelerate the pace of change and drive innovation.

The campaign specifically aims to support smaller members on their journey to net-zero by leveraging the BPF’s reach across the real estate industry and connecting small and large members in this common goal.

Through the Net Zero Pledge the BPF will be calling on all its members to sign up to setting net zero targets and plans, and commit to supporting the UN Race to Zero or similar initiatives by June 2023; to share information, knowledge and research on an open-source basis, and encourage radical collaboration across the sector; and to support each other, in particular the smaller and medium sized businesses in the sector, by leveraging the experience and expertise of those leading the drive to net zero. The campaign will be launched formally at the BPF annual conference in June 2022.

Meanwhile, the UK Green Building Council has launched its first ever UK Roadmap for achieving Net Zero carbon built environment by 2050.

Co-created by industry with over 100 organisations contributing, the Roadmap provides a shared vision and set of actions for achieving a net zero UK built environment by 2050, in relation to construction, operation and demolition of buildings and infrastructure.

The Roadmap quantifies, for the first time, the specific emission reductions across sub-sectors of the built environment that will need to take place year-on-year to meet the 2050 deadline. The analysis includes not only domestic emissions, but emissions related to the consumption of imported construction products and materials. The Roadmap establishes a net zero emissions budget and trajectory to 2050, consistent with wider UK carbon targets and budgets as set-out by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), enabling government and the UK built environment to benchmark progress over the coming years and decades.

The built environment is directly responsible for 25% of the total UK carbon footprint, so the sector has a critical role to play in the national transition to Net Zero. With policy, growing consumer demand and an increased sense of responsibility and urgency in the face of climate crisis, the drive for greener homes has never been stronger.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.