UK Green Building Council calls for DECs for all non-residential buildings
The UK Green Building Council has today called for energy efficiency ratings to be mandatory for all commercial buildings in a drive to cut costs, encourage refurbishment and improve efficiency. The council says ratings on an A to G scale should be introduced as part of the Government’s Energy Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.
“For a variety of reasons the property sector is not routinely measuring accurate operational energy use from private sector non-domestic buildings and, as the saying goes, ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’,” says the council in its report, titled “Carbon Reductions in Existing Non-Domestic Buildings” and launched today.
Display Energy Certificates (DECs) “provide both an ‘at-a-glance indicator’ and detailed technical information on the energy performance of buildings,” the council says. DECs are currently mandatory for public buildings over 1,000 sq m, but not private-sector buildings.
The council also wants landlords to be required to display DECs showing the energy efficiency of the services they provide. It says landlords must pass on data on their services to occupiers based on the Landlord’s Energy Statement, which has been developed by the private sector. It wants to see a phased roll-out of DECs for all non-residential buildings from 2012 onwards. By 2013 DECs could be automated by linking directly to utility metering data, cutting the costs involved, the report says.
The DECs should be used to draw up league tables of occupiers, landlords, sectors and buildings according to type and use, it adds, in a move it says could replace the current Carbon Reduction Commitment league table for organisations in the building sector.
Paul King, Chief Executive of the UK Green Building Council, said: “If you want to go on a diet, you first find out how much you weigh. The property sector urgently needs to go on an energy diet but to do so, it has to be able to accurately measure and report on its energy use. Display Energy Certificates do exactly that and should be rolled out to all buildings as soon as practically possible.”
“A to G ratings for commercial buildings will provide a reputational driver for both landlords and tenants to take energy use more seriously, leading to carbon and financial savings.”
Justin Snoxall, head of business group at British Land, which together with Cundall sponsored the work of the Task Force that drew up the report, said that the Government’s DEC experience in buildings since 2008 had led to many cases where public exposure of energy performance had produced action to cut energy use. “The opportunity is to replicate these successes in the private sector to influence future letting requirements of occupiers and to encourage greater action by occupiers and landlords together,” he added.
