Greening the Existing Housing Stock

This paper considers the impact of the built environment in terms of carbon emissions and proposes an achievable method of enabling the reduction of those emissions. The energy used in constructing, occupying and operating buildings represents approximately 50 % of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. Emissions from the domestic building stock were responsible for 41.7 million tonnes of carbon (MtC) in 2004- 27 % of total UK carbon emissions (DEFRA, 2006). Domestic energy use represents a large proportion of total national energy use. As one of the UK’s leading industries, responsible for 8 % of GDP and employing 1.5 million people, construction can lead the way in integrating sustainable development in all of its activities. Promoting sustainable construction is difficult, however, because of the industry’s size and fragmentation. Even if the UK construction industry could raise its annual output by a third, the yearly rate of increase in the standing stock would only rise from 0.66 per cent to 1 per cent. A one per cent per annum replacement rate for the existing stock would mean that it would take 70 years to replace the entire stock. This paper suggests that considerable savings of carbon emissions can be made through improvements to existing houses, however. It is demonstrated that energy efficiency measures, water saving measures and renewable energy technologies can offer significant savings on a home's energy costs and environmental impact. Potential carbon savings are identified and calculated. This paper considers the effectiveness of UK policy in promoting such measures and suggests a practical private sector method of encouraging their implementation. The measures proposed will have relevance in many other countries around the world