Guidance Published To Help Industry Meet Zero Carbon Targets

This week Housing and Planning Minister Yvette Cooper called on developers to focus their efforts on building eco homes of the future as Communities and Local Government published revised guidance on zero carbon homes construction.

The guidance is an attempt to provide greater clarity in a number of areas including the future eligibility of different energy sources and the method for calculating anticipated water consumption.Yvette Cooper said:

"We need to build more affordable homes but we also need to cut carbon emissions at the same time. That is why we are working with industry to meet the zero carbon challenge including through financial incentives.

"The ambition for all new homes to be zero carbon by 2016 is a challenging one. We need to work in close co-operation with house builders and the green technology industry to can achieve."

The Treasury will soon present draft regulations to Parliament setting out the definition of a zero carbon home for stamp duty land tax purposes. An exemption on stamp duty land tax for new zero carbon homes was announced by Gordon Brown last December.

The full PDF Version of the guidance can be found here.