Call for Contributions to New Consultation on
Existing Housing

While many of us working within the existing housing sector have known it for a while, the wider world seems to be waking up to not only the dire state of our homes, but also their enormous potential for improved environmental performance and reduced carbon emissions. Indeed, there is an unprecedented opportunity in the UK to influence government strategy in tackling our housing stock.

Several Alliance members - the UK Green Building Council, the Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes and the Sustainable Development Commission - have teamed up with several other government agencies to conduct an industry and stakeholder consultation on how to achieve deep cuts in carbon emissions from the UK's existing housing stock.

The Existing Housing Project , which is being carried out at the government's behest, will address questions such as:

- How do we ensure that the supply chain has the capacity and the skills to be able to deliver on a much greater scale?

- Does the householder, the tenant, or the landlord have all the information and advice to hand to make their decisions and choices easy?

- Do we have the right long-term regulatory and policy framework in place to provide the industry with the certainty it needs in order to plan ahead?

- Are the financial incentives and mechanisms in place for people to make cost-effective decisions?

The first stage of this process is a 2-week online consultation period from 18th August, followed by a workshop on 12th September. We would strongly urge all stakeholders in the housing arena to contribute to this. Key to the success and completeness of the final strategy will be a robust consideration of all the issues and options right from the start. The online consultation will be available at www.ukgbc.org and will ask for feedback on four key issues papers (technology and innovation; markets / service offerings; behaviour change and awareness; policy).

The Existing Homes Alliance, which is playing a central role in this process, will be working with all its supporters to coordinate input to this stakeholder consultation exercise.

The final report, to be completed at the end of September, will be sent to government and will recommend a series of measures for tackling carbon emissions in existing homes.  The Alliance anticipates the proposals to be taken forward to the government consultation in the autumn leading to a ‘Low Carbon Homes Strategy’ in spring 2009.