Behavioural change, individual psychology and consistency were common emerging themes of BASE London, the sustainability conference.
It was theme echoed by Greg Barker minister for energy and climate Change who also said that transparency and longevity were very important.
However, one question on this: in terms of practicalities versus rhetoric, if the coalition or Tories aren’t re-elected how can he guarantee things over a 10 to 15 year period?
On the Green Deal, he expected that 14m homes would be retrofitted by 2020 and up to 26m by 2030. He inferred that through Government initiatives such as the Green Deal, the Green Investment Bank and the Renewable Heat Incentive, the Government was setting the ground rules, but that ultimately it was up to the industry to deliver.
The mayor’s 60% carbon reduction by 2025 is achievable according to Martin Powell, director of environment and capital projects GLA. The question is how. Figures of £50bn investment were flashed on the screens. And Powell said that we need common measurements, competent contractors and business engagement.
But the UK is playing catch-up said Jurgen Maier of Siemens. He was offered the Green Deal in Austria 10 years ago.
If you applied current Siemens technology in the home today, it would reduce CO2 on average by 44%. He said the problem wasn’t technology but integration. How you integrate technology into the City is not understood. He said some of the issues which needed tackling included short term investment horizons, skills gap and the complexity of planning regulations.
But London’s public buildings refit schemes are being copied by other institutions and cities according to Boris Johnson Mayor of London. On domestic buildings, he said the renew programme is getting underway to help individuals.
He said the average saving from the 9,000 homes retrofitted last year was £154/yr along with an average saving of 0.79t CO2. He said that this was significant and the sort of income that will finance the new green bonds scheme.
He said this year 55,000 homes would be retrofitted and 1.2m by 2015. And he paid tribute to the EU’s JESSICA Fund which had put £100m towards helping to set up these new financial asset classes which would help finance the big retrofit.
He said that retrofitting would create jobs, confessing his vision of ‘boiler bunnies’ coming up to your front door to help drive down emissions and to save money. In fact, he said that the number of green jobs went up by 3,000 last year thanks in part to retrofitting.
“Britain is lagging on many things”, he said, “but one thing it won’t be lagging on is lagging.”
Commercial retrofit
Nevin Snood, associate director of Jones Lang Lasalle, in the retrofitting commercial buildings section, said it was important to get a baseline, a target such as energy m2, and analyse ROI on hard and soft facilities management and set goals towards meeting the targets.
Mike Sewell of MITIE presented a wagon-wheel of continual improvement focused on data, and energy reduction. Wisely he said things change and the circular model was well fitted to the world of constant change.
Louise Ellison of Quntain Estates said having incentives for occupiers is important. And she had a point. In a competition to see which student block reduced the most CO2 with pizza as a prize, savings of over 12% and £1,600 were generated by the winners.
She said getting the correct data was essential with some illustrations of bad data that she couldn’t work with, as opposed to accurate data which can be used to reduce emissions.
Ian Patience of Johnson Controls said that you need report energy data back to clients on a monthly basis and ask what actions can be taken. His company signs a guarantee of energy savings and will write cheques if they aren’t achieved.
Head of the Green Building Council Paul King was bullish. He said that Martin Luther King didn’t say “I had a nightmare”. And he took issue with the depressingly negative message of Paul Morrell the construction czar when he said that to reach the 2050 target one house has to be retrofitted every 50 seconds.
Don Leper of EON was at pains to explain that the energy supply company is transforming into an energy services company. If it didn’t he said then energy companies would be extinct. It was a message re-iterated by British Gas later in the day.
The fact that energy prices are set to rise by 100% in a decade, concentrates the mind wonderfully.
There was talk of carrot and stick in the Q&A to help people with council tax and stamp duty acting as both.
David Cooper of Barclays, (he was brave to stick his head above the parapet) – explained that banks want certainty - cast iron certainty if they are to invest in projects. And as renewables aren’t tried and tested in term of long term returns (it has been around for a very long time mind, David) then banks wouldn’t lend. Or if they did there would such high rates that it would be uneconomic for the recipients. The new EC regulation, Basle 111 was mentioned in clipping the banks ability to lend anyway. Jon Jenkin of GE Capital said there are investors willing to take a punt in the sector.
Jon Gummer, chairman of Sancroft suggested scrapping Building Regulations and control. He said 56% of houses don’t meet current Building Regulations anyway. And he suggested setting industry stretching targets, just below impossible and let them get on with it.
The major housebuilders should be set the targets of energy, waste and water efficiency and if they don’t meet them, then they would be subject to heavy fines, along with an explanation in a national newspaper he said.
Peter Head, chair of the Institute of Sustainability is working on a scale of retrofitting 20-50,000 houses on a community scale and said there would be synergistic effects at this scale with payback in 10-11 years.
Geoff Mulgan of NESTA perhaps summed up the prevailing trend at the final panel debate, when he said we know more about economics, engineering and technology, but less than 40 years ago about psychology and social aspects. And if we want to change behaviours in this area we need to understand human beings.