Existing Non-Domestic Buildings

About 18% of the UK’s CO2 emissions come from energy use in our non-domestic buildings – offices, shops, schools, hospitals etc. Clearly this is a hugely important sector to tackle if we’re to meet our climate change targets – but progress to date has been fairly limited.

One problem we face is the difficulty of gathering reliable data on energy use and carbon emissions in our existing buildings. In fact, even pin-pointing the exact number of buildings in the UK that fall into this category is quite tough.

To read all, click here.

The UK-GBC has been campaigning for more and better ‘real data’ on which to base policy and business decisions. Energy Performance Certificates, which are now mandatory, are a good start – but they need time to bed down and should be improved and updated as we learn lessons through their implementation. We believe Display Energy Certificates, again though not perfect, are vital to complement the EPC, by showing the actual energy performance of a building in use. Nothing highlights this better than the Communities and Local Government department’s own building, which scored a C on its EPC, but an F on its DEC.

A large number of public and private sector organisations will have to comply with the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme from 2010, which is aimed at reducing emissions from non-domestic buildings through a form of carbon trading scheme. The Department of Energy & Climate Change has lots of guidance on their website here.  UK-GBC as a member of the Green Property Alliance helped to produce a useful 'Guide for Landlords and Tenants' that assists owners and occupiers of commercial property to plan to implement the CRC EES. 

In our report of March 2009, the UK-GBC argued that a future Code for Sustainable (non-domestic) Buildings should not only cover new buildings, but existing ones as well. For more information about that piece of work use the links below:

• Download the CSB executive summary
  
• Download the full report
  
• Read about our 'building MOT' suggestion for existing buildings

Close information.