Zero Carbon Targets Need Force of Law

Sep 21 - Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK)

The Government risks missing its target to make new homes "zero carbon" by 2016 unless it makes developers sign up to standards, the National Housing Federation warned.

The chief executive of the national body for housing associations, David Orr, said that while 92 per cent of new homes built by housing associations meet current minimum sustainable criteria, only two per cent of privately built new homes do.

The National Housing Federation said that from April 2008, the same percentage of housing associations must meet even stricter standards to ensure they emit 25 per cent less carbon than conventional homes, and by 2016, they must have zero carbon emissions.

But according to the federation, private developers are not being compelled to make the same cuts.

Without legally-binding regulations on reducing carbon emissions private developers will miss the 2016 target, the NHF warns.

In its Green Paper, published in July, the Government set out targets to make all homes zero carbon by 2016, with no net carbon emissions from all energy uses in the home, such as heating and appliances.

Targets were also drawn up to make all new homes emit 25 per cent less carbon from 2010 and 44 per cent less emissions by 2013.

About a quarter of the UK's carbon emissions are caused by the way people heat, light and run their homes.

Mr Orr will raise his concerns, which he also says forces housing associations to pay more to build new homes, at the federation's annual conference in Birmingham today.

The NHF chief executive said: "Currently, private developers are not being compelled to meet minimum standards on greenhouse gas emissions at all.

"In fact, they are being allowed to put their profits ahead of the survival of future generations.

"It's time that ministers legally locked private developers into the same timetable as housing associations."