Energy Demand Reduction - No Joined up Thinking

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18 March 2016 | Updated 01 January 1970

The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) gave evidence this week to the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee where it concluded that the UK’s lack of progress in the energy efficiency of its buildings as a whole is down to the lack of a long-term plan from successive governments and the failure to treat energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority.

Its submission was to help the committee in its own report Home efficiency and demand reduction which echoed CIBSE’s recommendations that efficiency should be seen as a key part of the government’s energy policy and that a stable long term framework should be established to provide a stable landscape for consumers and investors.
CIBSE’s recommendations centred on the assertion that policies for energy efficiency currently vary across commercial, public, domestic and non-domestic buildings. The picture becomes even more ‘muddled’ on a national level, where schemes vary by location, scale and form with some requiring loans and others funded based on local demographics. These problems, combined with a perceived history of under-resourcing of schemes and ‘patchy support’ make it hard to attract businesses and consumers to buy the economic case for energy efficiency, according to CIBSE.
“In their current form, national energy policies are hampering efforts to make buildings more efficient,” claimed Sara Kassam, Head of Sustainability, CIBSE. “By giving energy efficiency the national attention and funding that it deserves, we can tackle the UK’s energy dilemma of reducing carbon emissions, enhancing energy security and ensuring that energy is affordable and accessible.”
Picture: Sara Kassam, Head of Sustainability, CIBSE – “national energy policies are hampering efforts to make buildings more efficient....”

Article written by Mike Gannon | Published 18 March 2016

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