Steve Martin, GVA Grimley

There seems to be an abundance of new regulations to promote energy efficiencies with the ultimate aim of moving towards a framework in which zero carbon developments become the norm and energy consumption is minimised. The CRC energy efficiency scheme, introduced this year, will assist in coaxing our largest organisations to reduce their carbon footprint and energy consumption. However, this really only captures a small proportion of businesses and is not intended to cover the domestic market.

The Government is consulting on whether to extend the Display Energy Certificates to include the private sector and covering all building sizes and types. This will assist in raising awareness of the energy consumed within the property sector and, in my opinion, should be implemented as soon as possible.

This still leaves the existing domestic market, which is responsible for approximately half of our energy consumption from buildings. New build schemes are captured under the current regulations; however, our existing stock requires much more investment and incentives to homeowners to impact on the energy consumption within this sector.

Now that it appears that the Liberal Democrats have their foot into Government with Chris Huhne appointed environment and climate change secretary, the green agenda could potentially be driven forward more quickly than if a majority Tory Government had won the election. Continued lobbying of the new Government from the likes of the UK Green Building Council and others, will assist in keeping this issue on the agenda. Nevertheless it will be important that the administrators of the various Regulations are provided with sufficient resources to monitor compliance and penalise those organisations, which breach the Regulations. Legal action against large organisations, which fail to comply, will send a positive message out to the industry and make others sit up and take notice.

Behaviour change is by far the single biggest challenge throughout the industry. Until people start taking these matters seriously there will still be lip service to compliance with regulations. Significant investment will be required in the short term to raise awareness of the issues and development of appropriate training and skills in order to deliver sustainable reduction in energy consumption cost effectively.

Steve Martin is a director in the building consultancy team at GVA Grimley