In an open letter to the chancellor of the exchequer, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (Cibse), along with other member organisations from across the construction, property and infrastructure sector, highlighted a “remarkable degree of consensus” in the potential for ‘green growth’.
The letter outlines policy actions that could be taken that would help deliver tangible results and calls for smart regulation that can provide clear direction. These include:
– better incentivisation of the Green Deal and a reinstatement of consequential improvements;
– ringfenced funding for refurbishing public buildings;
– improving and extending Display Energy Certificates to all buildings; and
– a commitment for all new homes and non-domestic buildings to be zero carbon from 2016 and 2019 respectively.
The coalition of professional and trade organisations was brought together by the UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC).
The letter has been timed to complement the initiative by Building magazine, which recently launched a Green for Growth campaign. Building’s campaign is backed by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and UK-GBC and is calling on the Government to stimulate economic growth in construction through promoting effective policies to tackle climate change.
Cibse has also outlined its support for Building’s campaign. A letter to the magazine from Cibse chief executive Stephen Matthews is published today. Welcoming the campaign’s focus on public sector retrofit programmes and Display Energy Certificates, Cibse says: “Since our buildings use nearly half our energy, cutting the energy used in our buildings should be a matter of national priority.”
