My Lords, I have been listening to an excellent debate, and I just want to say one thing that relates to Amendment 484 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and others. I just hope that, when my noble friend is responding or takes some of these very important points away, he responds not simply to the question of what is required in Building Regulations but what is achievable in terms of the sustainable framework for buildings. I declare a registered interest as counsel to Low Associates, which, between 2018 and 2020 was working with the European Commission on Level(s), which is a European Commission sustainable framework for buildings.
Such certification schemes exist. In this country, we have the Building Research Establishment’s environmental assessment method; the Americans have Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design; in France, they have gone further and legislated in RE 2020. The point I want to make is that, yes, we should focus on what is needed in order to secure an assessment of whole life-cycle carbon emissions in a building, but actually that is not enough, in my view. We should be increasingly looking at greenhouse gas emissions in total, at a circular economy and the reuse and recycling of materials, including in the demolition of buildings or the repurposing of buildings. We should be looking at water use and water resources. And we can put these, as many organisations increasingly do in certification schemes, in formats that are also very relevant to the performance assessment, including the cost assessment, of buildings, for those who have to invest in buildings, and indeed, in the public sector for those whose job it is to procure buildings.
We have structures that are available. We can see both voluntary schemes and—in the case of France and one or two others—legislative schemes that can focus on the broader environmental, health-related and social objectives of our buildings. These schemes recognise that, across Europe, 36% of greenhouse gas emissions are derived from our building stock. We have to deal with this; it is a central part of our environmental objectives. I hope Ministers are looking at both the statutory minimum requirements and a certification process that encourages the whole industry to move to a higher level of performance.