Fresh £150m for low-carbon buildings

Up to £150m will be invested in developing designs for more energy-efficient buildings under a new government initiative to drive progress towards zero carbon in the construction sector.

The government will invest £60m through the Technology Strategy Board in low-carbon building projects, which is expected to stimulate a further £60m of industry investment and £30m of investment from other government bodies.

The investment will be spread over the next five years.

The programme follows on from the Low Impact Buildings Innovation Platform, which has invested £83m over the last five years.

Business secretary Vince Cable said: “Investing in energy efficient construction projects is important to help industry and government achieve our aims of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2025.

“The construction industry contributes almost £90 billion to the UK economy and supports around 3 million jobs. We are well placed to take advantage of new and emerging energy efficient technologies, commercialise them and then export them across the world.”

David Bott, director of innovation programmes at the Technology Strategy Board, said government targets required “innovation on a grand scale”.

“The resulting new, innovative techniques for both building new, energy efficient homes and for refurbishing existing homes to similar standards have achieved often startling carbon footprint reductions and have the potential to help drive economic growth in this sector.

“We’re already identifying the most commercially viable solutions from this programme for further trails at scale, through our ‘Scaling Up Retrofit of the Nations Homes’ initiative and groundbreaking collaborations such as the AIMC4 project.”