On the 9th December 2010 the Government’s Green Deal was announced and the Federation of Master Builders made their response that a list of approved builders, who are registered as competent under a system of accreditation, will help ensure the success of Green Deal, but it won’t solve the problem of consumer demand.
The Green Deal is the Government’s retrofit scheme to make homes and businesses more energy efficient at no upfront cost. The Green Deal is part of the Government’s Energy Bill, which outlines the need for an accreditation system for both the energy efficiency advisors and the builders doing the work.
Richard Diment, Director General of the FMB said:
"The Government is completely right to recognise the fact that accreditation is vital to the success of the Green Deal. The opportunity to transform our existing homes is too big an opportunity for legitimate builders seeking new work to be to be undermined by the cowboy builders who need to be stamped out from the construction industry once and for all. It is important that those charged with carrying out the energy efficiency improvement work are recognised as competent in order to safeguard householders as well as reputable builders.”
“Unlike other countries there is no formal registration system for builders in this country with the result that every year over £170 million is stolen by unscrupulous builders from homeowners across the UK. The Green Deal gives us an opportunity to tackle this problem and the Government and the building trade must not be found to be wanting; the Green Deal 'quality mark' must stand up to the test.”
“Sadly it seems thus far that the Government has failed to take proper account of the need for sufficient incentives for homeowners to upgrade their properties. Housing is responsible for more than a quarter of the UK’s carbon emissions, As new build adds only 0.75% to the total housing stock in any one year, it is essential that a market is created to drive the retrofitting of our existing stock. Therefore, financial incentives, such as a reduction in VAT, are desperately needed to help cover the upfront costs and kick-start the retrofit market.”
In its report Transforming the UK’s Existing Housing Stock the FMB made a number of recommendations. Competence is key and, Training is essential to achieve the goal …
- Recommendation 12: ConstructionSkills to co-ordinate a review of existing training (including short courses) and develop a strategy for incorporating standards-based, low-carbon refurbishment into National Occupational Standards.
- Recommendation 13: ConstructionSkills and SummitSkills to develop a strategy for integration of skills in a ‘whole home’ targetdriven low-carbon refurbishment process.
- Recommendation 14: ConstructionSkills and SummitSkills to be involved in the development of a voluntary standard (or set of standards) for low-carbon refurbishment, which is consistent with an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions from all energy use in the entire housing stock by 2050.
- Recommendation 15: From 2009, the new Homes and Communities Agency to take forward the development of a voluntary low-carbon standard for refurbishment in the social housing sector in England.
- Recommendation 16: CLG to co-ordinate a study tour of relevant European countries for key UK stakeholders to learn about refurbishment standards and their implementation.
- Recommendation 17: Government to set out a timescale and policy framework for establishing mandatory refurbishment standards that are consistent with an 80% CO2 reduction target by 2050.
The UK has a legal commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. All the main political parties accept the need to move the UK towards a low carbon economy. However, the challenge to transform the way we live and work is immense. If the UK is to meet its legal target then the homes we currently live in will need to be transformed to make them greener and more energy efficient over the coming years. The challenge is immense but it also affords excellent opportunities to rethink how we construct and maintain our buildings to help ensure they have a long term future. Coupled with this is the development of new skills which if addressed correctly have the potential to make the UK a world leader in creating low carbon economies.
David Jones, Editor-in-Chief of CDM2007.org comments:
“I fully endorse the views expressed by Peter Diment and call for a formal registration scheme for all persons and their organisations to be properly trained to work in a competent manner when working in any capacity to address the UK’s CO2 target reduction roadmap to 2050”
“the Retrofit For The Future programme will be the future for the construction industry. It started a 40 years programme in 2010 but, sadly, here we are, nearing the start of 2012, and still very little has been done across the UK to move into the mainstream to get the programme moving with a head of steam!”
“It is estimated there’s 26 Million homes across the UK needing some sort of energy improvement work to bring them up to standard ~ so, in 2010 around 650,000 properties ought to have been worked on, but, sadly, only a handful of projects ~ now, in 2012 there will now be over 680,000 properties on average each year until 2050 ~ will we ever hope to achieve that?!”
Ed.
