The Built Environment: Terms of Reference

The impact of the built environment, planning and use of public space upon the sustainability and wellbeing of society in general and local communities in particular is profound. Buildings are a major contributor to resource consumption and carbon emissions and are also integral to community and individual wellbeing and cohesion. The built environment is an essential part of local social and economic infra-structure and transport systems. The Quality of Life Commission is committed to ensuring that the built environment becomes the foundation of a low carbon economy and that planners, developers, architects and builders are driven by sustainable design and the quality of life of those who live and work within it.

Place and space

For much of the last generation, the design of place and space has been built on the principle of uniformity and prescribed and restricted by a centralised planning system which has taken the decision-making power over planning and development away from local people in the direction of Whitehall. The separation of home from work, from shopping and from leisure has led to the segregation of people, a greater reliance upon transport and the isolation of vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and the rural poor. The growth of ‘out of town’ retail centres and the monopolisation of consumer choice by ever-efficient and competitive chains has transformed our high streets and village centres to the extent that commentators have talked in terms of ‘clone town Britain’. Single use and single tenure developments have divided communities and increased the carbon footprint of individuals who rely on their cars to get to work, travel longer distances to shop for food, create more waste and consume more energy and water.

The built environment working group will look seriously at ways in which we can create a new planning regime in order to achieve truly sustainable living and working communities and provide a holistic approach to urban and rural regeneration that reflects and is responsive to local needs and desires. This means balancing demand and supply, re-assessing existing and planned infrastructure, adapting to the growth in home-based work, making public space accessible and attractive to pedestrians and decentralising planning power.

Buildings

The working group recognises that we face a two-fold challenge – that of the existing built environment (in particular, the existing residential stock) and of new build. We will be considering mechanisms, fiscal instruments and policy measures to improve the energy and environmental performance of residential, public and commercial buildings. In particular, this will include measures taken at the point of change of ownership or tenancy, measures to ensure the adoption of cost effective energy efficiency improvements when extending and/or materially changing a property, and measures to eliminate the plight of domestic fuel poverty.

For instance, energy used in buildings (excluding industrial process energy) accounts for nearly 50% of the UK’s CO2 emissions, with the production of building materials accounting for a further 10%. Building material extraction and production, construction and demolition account for about 35% of all UK waste.  Construction waste totals 90 million tonnes p.a., of which about 20% is wasted new material.

Energy consumed in homes is responsible for about 27% of the UK’s CO2 emissions.  The UK has some of the worst housing stock in Europe (in terms of thermal performance) and a large legacy of old houses (50% of the current 25 million homes are more than 50 years old and 20% are over 100 years old). At current demolition rates, the average house will have to last for 1000 years before it is replaced. 

Various scenarios and research projects have proposed options to deliver a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions from the housing stock by 2050. Oxford University’s 40% House Report suggests that over 14% of our existing stock should be demolished by 2050 and replaced with new energy efficient homes to meet future carbon emission targets.   This implies demolishing about 80,000 to100,000 homes per year from 2015.  Other scenarios being proposed (by BRE and others) include options for upgrading the existing stock whilst avoiding the waste and embodied energy associated with mass demolition. This would have the added quality of life benefit of preserving the mix of architecture that makes our urban landscape a humane and interesting place in which to live and work.

A number of policy, regulatory and market barriers have been identified as hindering the take-up of resource efficient technologies, such as microgeneration, and the development of decentralised energy supply networks and embedded renewable energy generation.

Building regulations should, in theory, ensure that new homes (and major refurbishment/extension) are built to deliver minimum standards of environmental, structural, electrical, public health and fire safety.  The Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) is the method used to determine the energy performance of housing. A scale of 1-100 is used, with the current stock having an average SAP of 45.  A carbon neutral home gives a SAP rating of 100 and current Part L compliance results in a SAP of about 80 (depending on the house type and fuel mix).

However, independent research shows that current building regulations (in particular associated with thermal/environmental performance) are more honoured in the breach than the observance, and the group will consider as a priority potential reform of the system and the engagement of local government, utilities companies, builders and planners in achieving compliance.

The introduction of  building energy labelling or  Energy Performance Certificates (EPC’s) - a requirement of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) - whenever a building changes ownership or tenancy, provides a number of opportunities for introducing new fiscal and policy measures to encourage vendors, purchasers and/or landlords to invest in cost-effective energy efficiency measures. Energy ratings for homes were going to be a compulsory part of Homes Information Packs (HIP’s) from 1 June 2007, however, since HIP’s are not expected to be mandatory, it remains unclear how the current government intends to implement this aspect of the EPBD.

In addition to the EPC, there is an EPBD requirement for an accompanying report (prepared by an Independent Expert) which provides details of the cost-effective improvements which can be made to the home. It has been suggested that this measure could be linked to other financial incentives such as green mortgages. There are also EPBD requirements associated with display of EPC’s in “public buildings and institutions providing public services”. This could provide a major opportunity for public building owners and operators to provide leadership by implementing cost effective energy efficiency measures.

A key challenge for this working group will be to recommend new policy measures and fiscal instruments which can reconcile the sometimes conflicting social, economic and environmental requirements of sustainable development. However, the group will come forward with radical and far-reaching recommendations which deliver both environmental and quality of life benefits through the built environment.

The Built Environment working group will consider and receive evidence on the following policy areas:

1)      Place and space

• Planning system and guidance – how can the planning system be reformed and used to facilitate positive environmental change in new build and refurbishment to deliver integrated sustainable community living?
• Public space and sustainable design – how should and can communities make use of existing and new public buildings and public space (educational and health establishments etc.), how far can they become models of sustainable building and living?

2)      Buildings

• Building regulations, standards and codes – how do we achieve best practice energy/environmental performance for new and existing build; how do we enforce and verify compliance; and do we need a Code for Sustainable Homes? How and by when can we normalise the ‘zero-carbon building’?
• Construction – how do we minimise waste and consumption of energy within the construction industry and encourage both sustainable procurement by Government and corporate responsibility within the industry?

3)      Human environment 

• Social dimension of housing and built infrastructure – what do we mean by and how  do we achieve genuinely sustainable communities? This includes the regional location of new build, urban/rural development, greenfield v brownfield issues, affordable homes and social housing, fuel poverty reduction, the tax regime for new build and refurbishment and green mortgages.
• What is the link between the physical built environment and human wellbeing and how should the power of decision-making in planning and building be distributed between central government and local communities?

The working group is prepared to be radical and would welcome any submissions of evidence on the above issues. Our key questions are whether to build, how to build, what to build and where to build – the ultimate objective being to ensure that the answers to those questions are incorporated into spatial planning and design? The group plans to take evidence and conduct seminars this Autumn and produce a preliminary report by the end of January, with a final report in the Spring/summer of 2007.