The UK Green Building Council has warmly welcomed the Housing Minister Grant Shapps’ commitment to the target for all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016.
The new minister was speaking at an event with Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud to mark the start of work on a sustainable housing project in Swindon.
Paul King, Chief Executive of the UK Green Building Council said:
“The Coalition Government’s confirmation that from 2016 all new homes will be zero carbon is timely and right. Over the last three years, this target has galvanised the construction sector and led to an unprecedented amount of innovation.
“Zero carbon homes are an appropriate fit with the new government’s agenda. We urgently need to cut carbon emissions while improving peoples’ quality of life. We need to empower neighbourhoods and find community-based solutions to make low carbon, sustainable living easy, affordable and attractive for people. And more than ever, we have to do this in ways that deliver value for money – bearing in mind not just the short-term costs of development, but the long-term costs and benefits for the people who will live in our communities for decades to come.
“In an age of spending cuts, the job of government is one of enabler. It can set the goals for sustainable development, for industry to deliver, but only if it has the clarity and certainty it needs to invest and innovate. For this reason, we warmly welcome the Housing Minister’s commitment and his desire to finalise the definition of a zero carbon home to make it clear how developers should meet that target, and how the people who will live in these new homes and neighbouring communities will benefit.”
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