Government outlines plan for delivering low carbon industry

The government’s plan for delivering a low carbon construction sector, published this week, has been broadly welcomed by industry despite holding back from committing to several major recommendations from industry leaders.

The plan, published on Wednesday, is a response to recommendations produced in November by the Low Carbon Construction Innovation and Growth Team (IGT), led by chief construction adviser Paul Morrell.

Among key recommendations in the plan are:

• To establish a green construction board, to be set up by September
• To establish a standard method of measuring embodied carbon, which will be led by the RICS
• To reform the way government procures construction and infrastructure projects with an aim to cut costs by up to 20%.

However, the plan pledged to consider, rather than implement, several of the IGT report’s other recommendations. These include creating an existing homes hub to monitor the success of retrofitting and the mandatory use of display energy certificates (DECs).

The action plan has also dropped the IGT’s suggestion that the government include a whole life carbon assessment in its “Green Book”, which sets the principles by which the public sector assesses the economic case for projects and policies, although it will consider other suggestions for measuring whole life carbon.

Morrell said some of the IGT’s 65 recommendations were left out because they were not backed by many people whereas others, such as the existing homes hub and complex problems like whole life carbon measurement, required more thought.

Construction minister Mark Prisk hinted that the government would ensure DECs were rolled out, despite not yet being in the Energy Bill. When asked about lack of commitment to a roll-out in the action plan, he said there were “some orphans [IGT recommendations left out of the action plan] but we hope to make sure a parent will come forward”.

One IGT member said: “I thought Prisk was clear that it wasn’t a question of whether but when on DECs.” He added that the government had been “right to proceed with caution” on carbon costing. He added: “The government is seriously engaged and there is personal commitment from Paul Morrell and Mark Prisk and clearly commitment from the industry.”

David Strong, consultant and chair of the Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes, said he understood that the Better Regulation Executive, which also sits within BIS, has called for more evidence of the merits of DECs before agreeing to allow them to be rolled out.

He said: “There is a degree of frustration the report didn’t come out more favourably on DECs. In general it’s fair to say the report puts off a number of the key decisions.”

John Tebbitt, industry affairs director at the Construction Products Association, welcomed the action plan but said it did not do enough to measure carbon.