If we are serious about combating climate change then we must address the 40% of carbon emissions that come from our buildings.

The steps that can be taken in people’s homes are becoming clearer and more widely accepted but action still needs to be taken in offices, retail units, hotels and industrial buildings.

The ground-breaking report, Transforming Existing Buildings: The Green Challenge sets out practical steps needed to encourage the refurbishment of commercial buildings to ensure they meet the best energy efficiency standards.  

It was commissioned by RICS and carried out by Cyril Sweett to address the need for more information on how to make existing commercial buildings more energy efficient.

Cyril Sweett is a leading global construction consultancy.  It offers expertise in cost consultancy, project management, management consultancy and a comprehensive range of specialist consulting services. 

They are ideally placed to offer the solutions necessary to help make buildings more sustainable.

The report also contains a set of 15 key recommendations from RICS for the Government and the property and construction industries to ensure these measures are put in place.

From painting walls lighter colours to installing insulation, a range of measures can have an impact on energy use in buildings and ultimately the environment.

In response to the report RICS is calling on the Government to:

• Ensure all the buildings it owns and uses are brought up to high energy efficiency standards.  Newly built Government offices such as the new Home Office building have energy efficiency measures and retrofitting other buildings would encourage others to do the same.
• Reduce VAT from 17.5% to 5% on retrofit and refurbishment as this would make it cheaper to make changes to buildings.  The Government has already signalled its intention to lower VAT to encourage the uptake of energy efficient products including light bulbs and should extend this include the refurbishment of buildings.
• Consider other tax breaks as an incentive to introduce energy efficiency measures.
• Introduce a compulsory code for sustainable buildings, developed in association with the industry, which would set out minimum environmental standards that have to be met when refurbishment takes place.  This creates a level playing field that all those carrying out refurbishment work have to meet.
• Ensure the planning system and the Building Regulations help energy efficiency rather than hindering it.  The Government must ensure these systems are weighted in favour of energy efficiency measures.  One important change would be the introduction of a presumption in favour of microgeneration equipment in Planning Policy Statement 22.
  

Copies of the full report, the executive summary and an audio version are available in the Downloads panel on this page.

For further information contact:
Ursula Hartenberger
RICS EU Public Affairs Manager
T +32 (0)2 739 42 21
E uhartenberger@rics.org