Entries for January 2009

The European Commission has set out proposals for a new worldwide agreement to tackle climate change and how it could be financed, which are due for completion at the Copenhagen UN climate conference in December.

A sustainable home designed to cost €100,000 in Turin was one of the projects to win high praise from the judges of this year’s MIPIM Architectural Review Future Projects Awards.

The pool where double Olympic gold medallist Rebecca Adlington learned to swim will be transformed in the next year, to produce lower carbon emissions as well as greater space for swimmers.

Last month in Cologne a new office building was completed and certified a Passive House. Could the high energy efficiency standards used in such projects be applied to buildings in Britain and the rest of the world? Ella Taylor reports.

The National Self Build Association launched a report this month in which they claimed that increasing the level of self-built homes in Britain would protect jobs in the design and construction industry, inject money into the economy and create more sustainable homes. Are they right? Ella Taylor reports.

A consultation resulting from an independent review of charging and metering for water and sewerage services is due later this spring.

Councils may soon have greater freedom to build more homes under plans set out in a new consultation paper from the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG).

Sceptics argue that the international green and sustainable building agenda will diminish in importance in the recession but several reports indicate otherwise.

Despite the economic slowdown which overshadowed the summit of European leaders at the beginning of December, the meeting also took important decisions on climate change. Europe has been proud of its leadership in this area – particularly in steering the Kyoto Protocol into international law in the teeth of American opposition – but there is an awareness that times are changing.

Bureaucratic EU rules designed to encourage fair competition are forcing councils to go through a costly procurement process which is scuppering vital new regeneration projects, according to the British Property Federation.

For those involved in construction, a major difficulty with the Government’s commitment that all new homes from 2016 – and non-domestic buildings from 2019 – should be ‘zero carbon’ has been the lack of a definition as to what this means in practice.

Communities housing minister Iain Wright has revealed in a written reply that Communities and Local Government departmental officials are having “ongoing discussions with a large number of bodies including representatives from local authorities, product manufacturers and the development and insurance industries on this and other issues relating to the building regulations.”

MPs on the Communities and Local Government Committee have claimed in a new report reviewing their inquiries during the last Parliamentary session that their recommendation shave led to ministers making several decisions supporting  implementation of sustainable energy policies, including  microgeneration and smart meters.

“Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet… We will work tirelessly to… roll back the specter of a warming planet… We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” President Barack Hussein Obama, 20 January.