Improving the energy efficiency of the existing building stock is a more cost-effective route for achieving CO2 savings than constructing new buildings, a new report reveals.
The ground-breaking research is included in a new publication Energy Efficiency in New and Existing Buildings: Comparative Costs and CO2 Savings, which reviews ways to improve the energy efficiency of both new and existing buildings, and is published by the BRE Trust, the owner of BRE, the UK’s leading centre of expertise on the built environment,
The report, published by IHS BRE Press, considers the relative impact on UK CO2 savings targets of constructing new, zero-carbon buildings as opposed to improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings. Carbon dioxide emissions from UK buildings accounted for approximately 40 percent of total UK CO2 emissions in 2006. The UK government has stated its aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
In the report, existing data are used to explore the extent to which improving the energy efficiency of the existing UK building stock would be a more cost-effective route for achieving CO2 savings than constructing new buildings, which require higher levels of energy performance to meet low- and zero-carbon targets.
This is due to the fact that existing buildings are expected to form the majority of the UK’s building stock for many years to come since approximately three-quarters of houses and 60 percent of non-domestic buildings in 2050 are likely to have been built before 2010.
“While moving towards a zero-carbon objective for all new buildings can undoubtedly achieve a significant reduction in CO2 emissions in the future, existing buildings will form the majority of the UK’s building stock for many years to come,” said Fiona MacKenzie, co-author of the report.
“Therefore, it is vital to focus on the energy efficiency of the existing stock as well as new buildings if we are to achieve the government’s challenging emission reduction targets.”
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