A good note to end the year on and a new perspective on the cost of carbon to start 2008 with was reported in the Guardian last Friday. (also picked up by fellow blogger Phil at Some Seasonal Cheer ). Effectively ministers will now have to include a cost for carbon emission on all projects, starting at £25.50 a carbon tonne for 2007, rising every year to reach £59.60 a tonne by 2050. (This seems lower than other figures suggested!)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out through construction and fm – what would the additional cost of PFI’s, and BSF, building schools for the future projects etc now be. Would these costs be predicted over the life of a building. Can they be offset by carbon reducing measures built in?

And the Code – suddenly the cost of zero carbon homes may well be less than business as usual carbon construction.

Will the costs be applied to construction process emissions as well – and if so will this be tracked back up stream to the cement industry for example.

Not sure who actually will pay for these costs – the developers?, the supply side? the clients? More questions than answers at the moment, more detail is still to announced, but as this is a Treasury initiative it will surely be forced into being rapidly and with teeth. A whole new carbon based currency is being created.

Lets hope there is not a cop out by allowing offsets to offset these costs, and that the costs are real contributions to tackling sustainability

Whatever the detail,  we will start 2008 with a new, more meaningful perspective of sustainable construction, and more debates and discussion.

Brilliant.