黑洞社区

The government鈥檚 failure to announce a plan for making UK homes more energy efficient was a missed opportunity to 鈥渟how leadership鈥� on the world stage at COP26, the chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders has said.

Brian Berry told 黑洞社区 that a national retrofit strategy could have been used at the Glasgow summit as a 鈥渇antastic template鈥� for other countries to follow.

He said it would have been a 鈥渟hining light鈥� in a global arena where there was 鈥渜uite a lot of doom and pessimism鈥� around the reluctance of some countries, including China and India, to sign up to commitments on cutting carbon emissions.

He added: 鈥淲e could have shown leadership and instead what we鈥檝e done is sort of hide back in the shadows.鈥�

The heat and buildings strategy, the government鈥檚 plan for decarbonising the UK鈥檚 30 million buildings, was published last month.

It contained 拢5,000 grants for homeowners to replace their gas boilers with heat pumps, which run on electricity.

But despite the strategy insisting the government would take a 鈥榝abric-first鈥� approach with energy saving improvements like insulation and draught proofing installed before greener heating systems, the plan provided no details on how this would be done.

Berry said the government has been 鈥減olitically nervous鈥� about encouraging owner-occupiers to install energy efficiency improvements in their homes in case of a backlash.

But Mace chief of staff Hannah Vickers said that the government was not able to afford a national retrofit strategy, which the Construction Leadership Council has estimated would cost at least 拢500bn over the next two decades.

Vickers told 黑洞社区: 鈥淚f you take a step back and look at the constraints around the public finances coming out of covid, [the heat and buildings strategy] was probably about as ambitious as I expected the government to be.鈥�

She argued that the social housing decarbonisation fund, an 拢800m scheme for social landlords and housing associations to upgrade the energy efficiency of tenants鈥� homes, could be used by the construction industry as a 鈥減ilot鈥� to work out how the work can be scaled up on privately owned homes, which make up nearly two thirds of those in the UK.

The fund was part of a 拢3.9bn package in the heat and buildings strategy which also included 拢950m for local authorities to retrofit low-income households and 拢450m for heat pump grants for homeowners.

A further 拢338m will be used to develop low-carbon heat networks, while 拢1.4bn was earmarked for decarbonising public sector buildings including schools and hospitals.

But Berry said the UK has 鈥渘o hope of delivering zero carbon unless we make our homes greener and more energy efficient鈥�.

Around 28 million of the UK鈥檚 30 million buildings are homes, with the residential sector accounting for around 16% of the country鈥檚 carbon emissions.