The UK government is currently banging the drum for its latest initiative, Future Homes and Buildings Standards (FHBS), on which consultation ended in March. These are due to be enforced next year and are intended to ensure that all new homes are ‘net zero ready’ and won’t need retrofitting.

It would be unfair to say that nothing has been achieved. According to the Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group (EEIG – a collaboration of industry and trade bodies, think tanks and environmental NGOs), government policies have driven progress on building energy performance. For example, the proportion of English housing in the highest energy efficiency rating bands, A to C, increased from 16% to 47% between 2011–2021.

However, many consider that the regulations fall far short of what’s needed. The UK Green Buildings Council (UKGBC) criticises government for offering a choice between ‘the two weakest options’ set out by the Future Homes Hub (FHH – an industry and government partnership established to deliver on the 2025 FHBS) in the Ready for Zero report of March 2023. The National Housing Federation (NHF – the voice of housing associations in England) says these ‘closely resemble’ standards in the revised building regulations of 2021, but do not go far enough.

Consultation on the FHBS ended in March 2024. NHF says no further fabric improvements are proposed other than making properties more airtight, as this was the only one deemed ‘cost-effective and practical’. Yet we are now meant to be in the ‘fabric-first’ era, where the performance of components and materials should be a priority (with – apart from airtightness – a focus on natural ventilation, eliminating thermal bridges and optimum insulation) rather than retrofit.

The UKGBC says many buildings are already constructed to a higher standard than the government is contemplating, with some developers investing ‘years and millions of pounds developing skills, technologies and supply chains to deliver more’. It claims England’s proposed minimum fabric standards are currently lower than those suggested by the Welsh government and the Scottish equivalent of a Passivhaus standard.

The UKGBC suggests that a truly ‘future’ standard should improve fabric performance to include U-values – which measure how effective any material is as an insulator – and airtightness in line with Climate Change Committee recommendations, limiting heat demand to 15–20 kWh/m₂/y.

Best practice
Threading through the babble and policy lurches, beacons of best practice hint at ideal solutions. While in 2013, the political climate changed after the then Prime Minister David Cameron’s denunciation of focusing on ‘green crap’ – leading to a drastically reduced number of homes being insulated – Southern Housing Group, among the largest associations in south-east England, chose an enlightened approach and in 2015 delivered its first scheme built to Passivhaus standards.

Built on 1.5 acres, Cameron Close is development of 16 semi-detached family houses and 12 sheltered apartments in Freshwater, Isle of Wight. All were built with 5,500 mm-thick external walls, triple-glazed windows, a ventilation system with heat recovery, and low-capacity condensing boilers.

In 2018, across the Solent, Portsmouth City Council completed its transformation of a draughty housing council tower block, many of whose residents were in fuel poverty. Wilmcote House, local authority-built in the 1960s, was prone to damp and condensation. The Council commissioned ECD architects to lead the project, which resulted in the largest EnerPHiT (the retrofit equivalent of Passivhaus) standard scheme yet delivered with residents in-situ.

Stone wool insulation – created by spinning molten rock and minerals with steel slag to create a cotton-candy-like product – was fixed to new external steel frames to wrap the building. When pressed into rolls and sheets, thermal properties derive from tiny pockets of air trapped within its physical structures. It creates insulation with sound-absorbing and fire-resistant properties.

The outcome at Wilmcote House was greatly improved airtightness and reduced draughts, condensation and mould growth. Other work included roof replacement, installing triple-glazed windows and adjustment of the ventilation with a heat recovery system.   

This was a four-year programme featuring collaboration between architects, manufacturers, the Council and academics from the University of Southampton School of Engineering. Their role was to research energy loss and investigate residents’ use of heating, the results of which fed into the design process, and evaluate the project from a carbon reduction perspective.

To the north, in the West Midlands, Midland Heart housing association’s Project 80 has adopted a traditional means in its ‘fabric first’ approach to energy efficient homes, having been influenced by FHBS requirements to reduce carbon emissions by 75–80%.

‘Fabric was the starting point that needed to be addressed,’ says Tony Hopkin, the Association’s Head of Construction. Midland Heart says that by trialling different solutions, particularly the latest concrete and aircrete blocks, it achieved U-values of 0.13, putting its properties ‘comfortably within’ the standard’s requirements. Lightweight aircrete blocks were easy to install, supported the air-tight structures, reduced the chance of thermal bridging and sped up construction.

The concrete blocks, made by Shropshire-based Besblock, used a process that helped achieve an 80% carbon reduction target. Cured by energy from a nearby waste wood facility and using biomass boilers, the products had lower embodied carbon than equivalent products. Cavity wall construction was used to deliver thermal efficiency ‘without reinventing the wheel’. The 12 homes were finished in 2022.

A truly ‘future’ standard should improve fabric performance to include U-values – which measure how effective any material is an insulator – and airtightness in line with Climate Change Committee recommendations, limiting heat demand to 15–20 kWh/m₂/y.

Future directions
There are plenty of voices and pressure groups eager to suggest ways of improving things. They include EEIG, which recently produced a manifesto calling for retrofit schemes to be expanded and unified.

EEIG cites research claiming that a 20% reduction in energy use by 2030 from UK homes requires an additional 6.8 million installations of loft insulation; 3 million of floor insulation; 4.6 million solid wall and cavity wall installations; 2 million solar panel installations; equipping 2.5 million homes with heat pumps; connecting 2.1 million homes to a heat network and providing 9.3 million homes with draught proofing and hot water tank insulation.

Targeted financial incentives would, it says, encourage home owners to invest in energy efficiency measures as they do roof repairs or an extension. EEIG points to government figures from 2017 suggesting that houses with an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of B/C typically sell for around 5% more than band D-rated ones.

EEIG says that practical and financial support for every local authority should be increased over 10 years, with councils sharing up to £4.5bn annually for programmes to help households in fuel poverty or on low incomes.

It’s joined the call for government to introduce an energy-saving stamp duty tax incentive in 2025. Stamp duty on high performing homes would be cut, and those buying a less efficient home would pay more. However, if energy-saving improvements are carried out within two years of purchase, a rebate would be paid covering the difference between the higher and lower rate.

Few signs of change
Currently, there are too few outposts of excellence. Is government inertia to blame, or volume house builders, for whom maximum profit is often the priority? Newbuilds still have an image problem. Last November, a Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) survey reported that more than half of those questioned thought older houses are better. In 2021, the government created an independent body, the New Homes Quality Board, to ensure standards were met by housebuilders, but registration is not required by law.

New Energy World asked the NHF if it believed that the building industry, notwithstanding piecemeal government policy, could do more off its own bat to improve construction and insulation standards. Or, if it had one big idea to improve the fabric of houses on a mass scale, what that might be? Its response, through Kevin Garvey, Head of Member Relations, merely reflected a major frustration of housing associations. Remarking that ‘the skills shortage is preventing them from being able to retrofit at scale and pace’.

EEIG’s call for a 25-year national buildings renovation plan supported by a 10-year package of policies echoes moves being made worldwide. In March, more than 70 governments, including the UK, gathered in Paris to agree the Chaillot Declaration. Organised by the French government and UN Environment Programme (UNEP), it committed to deliver decarbonisation and finance ‘green and resilient buildings’.

There were broad-brush statements of intent: implementing roadmaps, regulatory frameworks, and mandatory building and energy. Creating financial and fiscal incentives, and regulatory tools. Promoting standards and certifications. It has fallen to Jader Barbalho Filho, Brazil’s Minister of Cities, to keep the momentum going. His aim is to convene a further ministerial meeting at COP30.

While winter 2023–2024, with its punitive energy bills, may be a receding memory, many living in poorly-built or insulated houses will dread the autumn. Those looking to a potential Labour government post-election for comfort will have been dismayed by the decision to cut back funding for its Warm Homes Plan.

As CBI Director Tania Kumar points out, the built environment presents ‘one of the most complex infrastructure challenges on the UK’s journey to net zero’. The situation cries out for co-ordinated and decisive action.

• Further reading: ‘US publishes plan to decarbonise buildings sector’. How construction standards are expected to improve on the other side of the pond.
• UK homeowners now have the opportunity to upgrade home insulation and cut their heating bills through the UK government’s new Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS).