Buildings Mission Zero Network
What is the Buildings Mission Zero Network?
The Buildings Mission Zero Network is working to put greater detail on the strategies needed to achieve accelerated decarbonisation of buildings and homes.
Our Buildings Mission Zero Network explained
The future decarbonisation of buildings, from domestic housing to commercial and industrial real estate provides a significant opportunity to reach the UK’s Net Zero by 2050 commitments.
Around 25% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the built environment, according to the UK Green Building Council’s Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap. These emissions arise from the heat and energy that buildings consume as well as from the production of energy-intensive products and materials needed for their construction, such as concrete.
Decarbonising the sector is crucial for delivering net zero, through retrofitting existing buildings, improving building design to increase energy and heat efficiency and sustainable construction materials and processes to reduce energy consumption and eliminate waste.
The CCC found a lack of progress in improving energy efficiency has contributed to building emissions plateauing since 2015. Institute for Government’s analysis found that the UK has some of the worst insulated homes in Europe, with the key challenge being existing stock, over half of homes in England were built before 1965 and almost 20% built before 1919. Nearly half of low-income households in England still live in homes with an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of D or below, meaning they may use 27% more gas and 18% more electricity on average than EPC C-rated homes.
Working towards gas free homes by 2035 and giving consumers greater understanding of their household through a new Net Zero Performance Certificate is one of the ten missions set out in the Net Zero report. The Buildings Mission Zero Network is taking forward recommendations from the report, as well as identifying new areas of policy focus where the UK could be more ambitious or deliver more effective outcomes for the buildings industry.
Download our latest report
The Buildings Mission Zero Network
Decarbonising our built environment, as the Net Zero Review set out, remains one of the greatest challenges to Britain hitting Net Zero. This report launch will be the first of two reports that will focus specifically on decarbonising existing buildings, with a second report on new buildings to be published in December.