Living beyond zero carbon

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Zero-carbon living is a reality, but behavioural change is what is ultimately needed if we are to cut carbon emissions.

Innovative methods by companies and individuals alike are needed to ensure the UK’s target of a cut in carbon emissions by 80 per cent is achieved by 2050.

That was the message delivered by several organisations at a parliamentary reception to celebrate the winners of the Green Apple Awards for the Built Environment.

Robert Noel, from Green Apple Award recipient, Land Securities, said the government's zero-carbon definition has "generated more hot air than it will ever solve", and that a "conscious change in behaviour in the workplace could reduce carbon emissions by 20 per cent overnight".

However, he went onto state:

"Unfortunately behavioural change has been slow to catch on, so we need to force the case; this must be based on a polluter-pays principle because then nobody has the chance to opt out.

"We, Land Securities can build energy-efficient buildings, but if our occupiers chose to occupy them inefficiently, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it."

The Green Organisation has been hosting the Green Apple awards, rewarding and promoting environmental best practice since 1994.

Hosting the reception, Stephen Gilbert, MP for St Austell and Newquay, commended both the Green Organisation and the award-winners, both large organisations and individuals, which he said carry out "small acts amounting to much more than the sum of their parts".

The need to address the current housing shortage was uppermost in Gilbert’s mind, he said, calling for "cheap, quick-to-build and environmentally friendly housing".

Award-winner Lafarge cement, the largest construction materials group in the world, demonstrated how this is already achievable.

Unity Gardens at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, a project supported by Lafarge, is an earth-sheltered social housing project, of very low-technology design, that has provided its residents with super-insulated housing and zero heating bills for the past three years of occupancy.

Dr Jerry Harrall, the architect who designed the homes, said Unity Gardens would demonstrate how it is possible to operate beyond zero-carbon and would make, for its 16 residents, "the threat of fuel poverty a distant memory".

One the residents of the so-called eco-village, Claire Gillett, said her family was saving "around £1,000 a year in fuel bills". Naturally heated and ventilated, she said the family home was as warm as 26 degrees throughout the winter.

Darren Gardner, business development manager at the Alumet Group, a Green Apple Award winner for the past two years, told the audience how the company is hoping to transform the town it is located in, Southam in Warwickshire, into a sustainable town. He said this could be done simply through providing advice on energy efficiency and carbon-reduction to businesses and individual home owners.

To view the speeches in full please click here.