With time running out to keep global temperatures to 1.5 degrees, upgrading the nation’s homes is one of the biggest opportunities the UK has to bring down carbon emissions whilst tackling the cost-of-living crisis, energy security, inflation and levelling up all whilst protecting people from our changing climate.
Momentum for action is building and there is a new window of opportunity to influence current Government and future government’s policy.
- Soaring gas prices have put energy saving on the public agenda.
- Chancellor Jeremy Hunt made a political commitment in the November Autumn Statement that energy saving would now be ‘just as important’ as energy generation and announced a new ambition to cut energy use in buildings and industry by 15% by 2030. He also announced a new Energy Efficiency Taskforce to oversee this target. The new Energy Security and Net Zero department has an explicit objective to improve the energy efficiency of UK homes, businesses and public sector buildings to meet the 15% demand reduction ambition.
- We’re now less than two years from a general election and the Labour Party has pledged £6bn per year for 10 years on home energy retrofit.
The new target and Labour’s pledge beg the question: what is the Government’s plan to meet it? Officials are already briefing the media that the funding committed by Government is billions too short.
But what is the minimum government investment needed and who should receive the money? We know that, in addition, a combination of policies will be needed to drive the pace of progress, crowd in private investment at scale, de-risk the task for households investors and politicians, support local delivery, support supply chains, etc.
Many stakeholders have done important work championing individual and groups of policy recommendations. But now politicians will need to know how all the parts stack up together to deliver the goal. They will also want to be reassured that there is broad consensus across industry and major stakeholders.
UKGBC’s new member supported project will carry out this analysis and convene broad industry, local authority, third sector and political support behind it. The new analysis and a short report will be produced with an expected launch later in 2023.
As part of this project, UKGBC is excited to have onboarded several project partners to help steer and shape the final output. They bring a range of expertise to ensure that the outcome is both communally created, but also represents a wide knowledge base and includes as much insights as possible.
Those project partners are:
- Clarion Housing Group
- E.ON
- Greater London Authority
- HTA
- Lendology CIC
- SE2
This project forms part of UKGBC’s
Advancing Net Zero Programme
