Campaigns

Our mission and our whole programme of work is, at its heart, a campaign. We exist to drive radical change in the built environment and work with industry, government and other decision-makers and stakeholders to achieve this.

However, we will also run focussed, time-limited campaigns on specific issues that we wish to highlight; decisions that we believe should be made; or policy that we believe should be adopted - by government, by our members, or by the wider industry.

Over time, we are likely to have a small number of such campaigns running alongside one another - each with defined outcomes and clear, targeted goals.

GREAT BRITISH REFURB

27% of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions come from the energy used in our homes. At least 80% of homes that will be standing in 2050 have already been built. Our existing homes have therefore got a huge role to play in ensuring our climate change targets are met and will need to be radically transformed in order to do so.  

UK-GBC are supporting the Great British Refurb campaign, a Grand Designs campaign with Kevin McCloud, also supported by the Energy Saving Trust and WWF. At the heart of the campaign is a petition to Government, calling for action to make it easier, more affordable and more attractive for people to eco-refurbish their homes. Go to www.greatbritishrefurb.co.uk for more information and to sign the petition. Once you’ve signed it, pass it on to colleagues, family and friends. The more signatures we get, the bigger impact we can make.

The UK-GBC completed a considerable piece of work on reducing carbon emissions from the existing housing stock last summer, submitting a report to Government and informing government’s Heat and Energy Saving strategy.  Click here for more information, or download the final report, 'Low Carbon Existing Homes'. 

CAMPAIGN FOR REAL DATA

The UK-GBC is concerned with achieving real, lasting and measurable progress. As sustainability, and climate change in particular, has become a mainstream concern over recent years, there has been an understandable rush to provide solutions.

It is of course vital that we strive to find these solutions, including new techniques and technologies in construction and design.

However, we must also build the foundations for long-lasting success. A current hindrance to ensuring our decisions deliver the best outcomes is a lack of readily available, robust and reliable data. This occurs right across the life-cycle of the built environment and the Campaign for Real Data will seek to tackle the problem wherever it occurs - from materials, to water, waste and more.

The problem of poor data is particularly acute in the case of CO2 emissions from existing non-domestic buildings, where current data is extremely inconsistent and incomplete.

It is widely acknowledged that buildings in use will use considerably more energy than the model constructed during the design process suggests. It is therefore vital to add post-construction and post-occupancy data to the design stage data and to build up a comprehensive and powerful knowledge base of information at all three stages.

The logic is that with better data in place, and more accurate design assumptions, we can better ensure that regulatory changes, legislative drivers and the solutions we employ will have real and lasting success in driving down emissions.

The Campaign for Real Data’s first priority is to ensure full, fast and smooth roll-out of Energy Performance Certificates and Display Energy Certificates - to all non-domestic buildings - as a basis for making progress.