Category Archives: politics

Tory green and carbon views …

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Following on from the Lib Dem green proposals (here) the Goldsmith – Gummer team have pusblished the Tories take on become green and crbon zero.

Among issues which affect the construction and fm sector are :

 a doubling of landfill tax for business

a planning presumption against the building of more out of town supermarkets in an attempt to revive and diversify town centres and local, family-run businesses.

The Tories in the run-up to the launch focused on measures to improve energy efficiency in the home including offering big cuts in stamp duty to home-owners who make their homes carbon efficient.

source – Guardian  

zero carbon Britain ??

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Following on from yesterdays post on the Lib Dem’s vision for a zero carbon Britain… one with no fossil fuel cars and a zero carbon built environment by 2050 -Leo Hickman considers the implications in today’s Guardian and rightly points out that the Lib Dems may have stolen the clothes from the other parties, albeit temporarily.

Are we seeing a rising in the ante of carbon  politics? along with a new zeitgeist of green taxes and green mortgages?

The fight is has commenced for the greenest party.  One wonders where the Green Party will position itself, or has it achieved its aim of bringing green issues to the top of the political and corporate agendas?

Lib Dems view on low carbon housing

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In what will most likely be the first of many reports, papers and manifestos as we approach conference season and elections, the Lib Dems have set out their vision of a zero-carbon Britain by 2050 when it published the most ambitious blueprint for climate change reform ever produced by a mainstream political party. (Guardian article here)

On housing the blueprint covers

Introducing ‘green mortgages’ to enable people to make their homes more energy efficient. (see previous isite post)

Cut carbon emissions from new buildings by 95 per cent compared with our existing housing stock by ensuring that all new homes have to  be built to the GreenHouse standard no later than 2011

Ensure that the housing stock is completely updated by the year 2050.

Ambitious maybe but the pattern has been set for the other political parties to follow or address.

Lib Dem Zero Carbon Britain from here

Understanding the Merton rule…

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There has been a lot of coverage on the Merton Rule this week, with zero champion over at sustainability blog covering events.  here  and here  now, a further article in today’s Guardian attempts to clarify … or not.

Why is this important?

The so called Merton Rule wa introduced by Merton Borough and requires, as a planning requirement, that all new projects to obtain at least 10% of a building’s energy from sustainable sources such as solar or wind power.  The rule is now used by 150 councils across the UK, many using the 10% figure others, like GLA attempting to push for 20%.

A recent and current campaign by the British Property Federation and Home Builders Federation to overturn this ruling led to leaks of a draft planning policy statement which local authorities said would undermine their ability to insist that developers use green technologies.

Meanwhile – an epetition has been started… We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Not allow the abolition of the Merton Rule. There are 51 signatories so far.

understanding renewables

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Interesting to watch the reposnse to yesterdays article (Revealed:cover up plan on energy target) in the Guardian  with  a flurry or posts to blogs, letters, responses from government and eidtorials.

This is being well covered by Phil Clarke over at Sustainability Blog,

Strong stuff in Monday’s Guardian, where economics correspondent Ashley Seager takes the Government to task for its encouragement (or lack of it) of renewable technologies. He offers a stark contrast between us and Germany, where renewables now makes up 13% of all energy compared to our 4.6%. Seagar reckons we are tinkering at the edges with our botched low carbon buildings programme and the renewables obligation (RO)system, which requires energy producers to use a growing propertion of renewable sources. “Britain’s climate change strategy, such as it is, is crumbling,” he concludes.

What is evident is that a whole new environmental and energy economy is emerging that will have great importance for the built environment and its future energy usage strategies.