Scrapping the Code for Sustainable Homes added £2.6 billion to energy bills
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The government decision to scrap zero carbon homes code added nearly £3 billion to energy bills between 2015 and 2022, new research by the Green Britain Foundation reveals.
Remind me, what was the Code for Sustainable Homes?
It was a voluntary national standard launched back in 2006 for the design and construction of new homes, as part of the previous Labour government’s plans to make all homes zero carbon by 2016.
The Code measured the sustainability of homes against nine criteria:
Energy and CO2 Emissions
Water
Materials
Surface Water Run-off
Waste
Pollution
Health and Wellbeing
Management
Ecology
Homes were to be rated against these criteria on a scale up to Level 6, which was equivalent to a ‘zero carbon home’, with sustainability certificates similar to the current Energy Performance Certificates (EPC).
Read the full report here.
Last summer, Ecotricity founder and trustee of the Green Britain Foundation, Dale Vince, also released a report on the solar capacity of UK homes.
Dale explained:
“We need the government to wake up to the benefits, not block them. After years of cuts, in 2019 the Conservative government tore down the incentive scheme for household solar without any sort of replacement, which saw new installations collapse by 94% in a month.
We need a government that makes it easier rather than harder to install rooftop solar. A government that helps households lower their energy bills. And the country to make its own power.
If we’re serious about lowering bills and kicking our addiction to fossil fuels, then we need a rooftop revolution. We have the technology. We have the rooftops. The economics are on our side. Now we need a government that gets it.”
Read more here.
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