Renewed focus

Glass Times editor Nathan Bushell says green will be the most popular colour for the foreseeable future.

The government has published its Energy White Paper, which sets out the specific steps it will take over the next decade to cut emissions from industry, transport and buildings by 230 million metric tonnes (equivalent to taking 7.5 million petrol cars off the road permanently) while supporting hundreds of thousands of new green jobs.

The white paper builds on the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, which will underpin the ambition to be ‘net zero’ by 2050.

Business and Energy Secretary Alok Sharma said: “[The] plan establishes a decisive and permanent shift away from our dependence on fossil fuels, towards cleaner energy sources that will put our country at the forefront of the global green industrial revolution.”

While green power generation and cardon capture storage are key pillars of the Energy White Paper, a major programme of retrofitting homes for improved energy efficiency and clean heat was also announced. However, the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) argued that a ‘National Retrofit Strategy’ is needed.

“The announcement of the long-anticipated Energy White Paper, with its focus on making our buildings warmer and greener, is an important step forward on the UK’s journey toward net-zero,” Brian Berry, chief executive of the FMB, said. “Britain has 28 million homes, many of which are energy inefficient and 85% of which will still be in use in 2050. Given that homes contribute 20% of the country’s carbon emissions it’s important that they are retrofitted to help deliver the government’s carbon targets.”

Following on from what I discussed last week it is further evidence that energy efficiency is only going to move further up the agenda in the construction or retrofitting of buildings, and now is the time to make sure you have everything in place to make your products and services the most relevant to building owners.