COUNCIL BUILDINGS
Buildings account for 40% of carbon emissions nationally. Reducing energy consumption in buildings for heating, cooking and using electrical equipment would, therefore, make a significant contribution to reducing carbon emissions.
Current activities:
- starting an analysis of our own buildings to identify potential energy and carbon savings.
- promoting domestic energy efficiency and giving advice on grants and discounted schemes; (achieved a 19% improvement over the last 12 years).
- reducing fuel poverty (where households spend a significant amount of their income on heating) through training and advice on grants that are available for heating and insulation.
- providing grants for minor household repairs (targeted at those on benefits) for replacing inefficient boilers and increasing thermal efficiency of homes.
- planning policies seek to reduce carbon emissions from new build through appropriate design, location and orientation and through improved energy efficiency and insulation.
- providing advice on sustainability measures in new developments. Produced a guide “Creating High Performance Sustainable Buildings”. A qualified assessor for the Code for Sustainable Homes can give advice on the Code which assesses the environmental performance of new homes.
- sustainable design and construction policies set the standards for new Council development. One policy seeks to achieve “very good” or "excellent” for non-residential development under the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM).
- Asset Management Plan commits to using whole-life costing techniques for construction projects; this can reduce carbon as it considers costs over a product's whole life and not just the initial cost.
- working with Registered Social Landlords; new build social housing to achieve Level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, up to Level 4 after April 2011 (Housing Strategy 2008-2011).
- housing projects are already being built to high sustainability standards; six houses at Arun Road, Billingshurst, are being constructed to Code Level 5 (incorporating ground source heating and rain water harvesting).
Future Actions:
| Initiative | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 to 2 years: | |
| Building Energy & Carbon Management Policy & Strategy | Will reduce energy use and carbon emissions within the Council's buildings; reductions to be benchmarked against a Government target of 12.5% reduction in energy use by 2010/11 and 30% by 2020 |
| Council’s major leisure centres | Work with the Council’s main contractor to investigate options for reducing energy consumption |
| IT Server | Servers and applications migrated to virtual environment & power saving |
| Fuel Poverty Action Plan | Produce an updated Action Plan |
| Energy efficiency in domestic properties | Investigate models used by other Councils to improve the energy efficiency of the existing housing stock and investigate the potential for cross funding from new development as “planning gain” |
| Smart Metering | Investigate promoting smart metering in domestic properties |
| Mobile Home Insulation Trial | Facilitate a trial project to identify the best scheme for insulating mobile homes |
| Sustainability in new social housing schemes | Monitor Registered Social Landlord delivery of the Decent Homes target |
| 2 to 5 years: | |
| Planning Policy - Review of Core Strategy | Review will involve studying the potential for measures to reduce carbon emissions from both residential and non-residential developments |
| Sustainable Design & Construction | Review and update the Council’s existing policies |
| Decent Homes & Energy Efficient Homes Project | Work with the Regional Housing Board Project to bring properties up to Decent Homes Standards including energy efficiency |
| Energy efficiency in social housing | Explore opportunities to work with the Registered Social Landlords to improve energy efficiency standards in this sector |