My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 484 in the name of my noble friend Lord Ravensdale, which was so comprehensively and
expertly laid out before us. I declare my interests as president of the Sustainable Energy Association and a member of the Peers for the Planet coalition.
This amendment would require housebuilders and other developers to produce an assessment of the amount of carbon for which the construction of a proposed project would be responsible over its life. This includes the carbon embodied in the building materials used and the construction processes deployed.
Everyone recognises the necessity of building in ways that limit carbon emissions once the building is constructed, but that is only half the story. Half of total emissions—possibly more—associated with new building come from the carbon embodied in its construction. Concrete, steel and other materials use vast quantities of fossil fuels, as does transportation, sometimes across continents, of heavy building materials.
The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has shown that—as the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, said—the embodied carbon in new buildings accounts for more emissions than aviation and shipping put together; that is a great statistic. Yet this huge contributor to climate change is virtually invisible. Measuring and assessing embodied carbon alongside the subsequent emissions over a building’s lifespan should make all parties think harder when choosing building materials. There are many alternatives to the worst-offending components. This amendment will provide the basis for eliciting the evidence for more sophisticated decision-making.
The amendment could also lead to greater priority being given to making the best use of the buildings we already have before demolishing and replacing existing structures and adding to landfill. Demolition and construction also create dust and air pollution on a massive scale, amounting to some 30% of harmful particulates in urban areas. Retaining—rather than clearing and replacing—existing housing can also have social and community benefits. Demolition of Victorian terraced streets in the 1960s and 1970s is now seen to have been, in many cases, an unfortunate mistake. The amendment forces us to pay more attention in the wider levelling-up agenda to the regeneration of the homes we have today, rather than concentrating, as the Bill does, on the planning and delivery of new homes.
Action to upgrade existing properties—with green grants, regulations on energy efficiency for lettings, tax incentives and more—does not only address the decarbonisation challenge, it improves quality of life, reduces fuel poverty and saves NHS budgets. Recent research by the Building Research Establishment found that excessively cold homes, for example, are costing the NHS £540 million a year. The improvement of existing housing would also be accelerated, and the stock of available affordable homes increased, by the introduction of a national housing conversion fund to finance acquisition and modernisation of poor-quality, privately rented properties.
As the levelling-up programme moves onward, these regeneration measures will demand more of government’s attention. In the meantime, this amendment would achieve a more credible basis for judging the environmental
impact of building practices and I strongly support it and the creation of a new Part Z to the building regulations.
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