Carbon Footprint of Existing Stock

Reducing our carbon emissions is one of the toughest challenges that faces our industry. Not only do we have to design, regulate and build new properties that have a low or more preferably a zero carbon footprint, but we also have to tackle reducing the emissions of the existing housing stock.

One of the guest speakers at yesterdays Ecobuild conference was Paul Ruyssevelt, a director at Energy for Sustainable Development. This company has calculated that the cost to reduce the emissions of the existing housing stock by 60% by 2050 will cost an amazing £13.5bn a year. That equates to works being undertaken to 450,000 homes a year. In simple terms this is an average spend of £25k per semi-detached property.

The current focus of the industry is to look at new build and the exciting new technology that is evident, as opposed to the old stock. Clearly the old stock does have a huge impact on the environment and should therefore not be ignored.

How on earth the government, private and public sector take this forward will be something of continuing debate and undoubted procrastination.

What was of interest, and reported yesterday at ZEROchampion was Ken Livingstone's grand Climate Change Action Plan. His aim is to reduce the capital's emissions to 60% below 1990 levels by 2025. To put this in perspective that is 25 years before the governments targeted date.

Whilst his proposals are ambitious you can only applaud his leadership in trying to push this forward, igniting a (non-fossil burning) fire under central governments backside...