Paul Morrell’s low carbon report highlights the challenges and rewards of tackling climate change
Small businesses including architects could benefit from a 40-year supply of work as long as they adapt to tackle climate change, the government’s construction tsar has said.
In his long-awaited final report for the government’s low carbon construction innovation team, Paul Morrell, also admitted that the green agenda represented the largest shake up of the industry since Victorian times.
The report was launched this morning by Morrell in the company of construction minister Mark Prisk, communities minister Andrew Stunell and climate change minister Greg Barker.
Its four key findings are:
-Meeting the UK’s commitment to reducing carbon and other greenhouse-gas emissions will affect every aspect of the built environment but there is much that could be done now, particularly with existing building stock.
-Transforming the built environment to low carbon could provide the industry with a 40-year programme of work, and act as a springboard to growth for more than 200,000 small businesses.
-Creating a green construction industry represents a potential area of substantial economic growth and would develop skills and expertise of great value to other sectors.
-Cooperation between government and industry is crucial in terms of stimulating the market for low-carbon and energy-efficiency measures.
Morrell noted that British architects, engineers and other consultants were already “earning the UK a well-deserved reputation as leaders in sustainable design”.
He also argued that the Treasury should introduce a requirement for “whole life costs” to be factored into feasibility studies so there was a far clearer incentive for low-energy design.
And he highlighted how one of the barriers to a more integrated construction industry was architects’ fear that design would be “dumbed down” by contractors and, conversely, that contractors feared architects would opt for “self-indulgent” design solutions.
The Final Report* (PDF, 3.8 Mb) and the Executive Summary (PDF, 691 Kb) were published on 29th November 2010.
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