Policy levers to deliver these outcomes

These core policy levers are needed to deliver a decarbonised, nature-positive, climate-resilient built environment while delivering growth, security and opportunity.

EXISTING BUILDINGS (Retrofit)

• Deliver a long-term national retrofit strategy: stable funding, and a delivery system that gives industry confidence and creates a pipeline of work for local firms.
• Unlock fair, accessible finance and cut electricity bills: create incentives and pricing reforms that create a self-sustaining retrofit market and make clean heating cheaper than fossil fuels.
• Strengthen standards for homes and commercial buildings: clear MEES trajectories with real enforcement and support.
• Reform EPCs and operational performance data: metrics that reflect comfort, cost, resilience and real-world energy use.
• Enable place-based delivery through empowered local authorities: scale area-based retrofit models with local skills development, green jobs and long-term coordinated funding.

NEW BUILD (Future Homes)

• Set clear timeframes for uplifts to the Future Homes & Buildings Standards: set out a strategy for improving building regulations long-term so industry can prepare.
• Introduce whole life carbon assessments, followed by embodied carbon limits in regulations: clear thresholds for major developments.
• Embed circular and reuse-first construction principles: through the national circular economy strategy alongside planning priorities for reuse of existing buildings.
• Mandate nature-positive and climate-safe requirements: integrate resilience regulations and nature-positive design guidance to protect communities, livelihoods and biodiversity.

ENERGY SYSTEM

• Deliver cheaper clean electricity for buildings: decouple electricity from gas to make clean heating and power genuinely cheaper, and ease pressure on the cost of living.
• Accelerate solar, storage & local energy: enable easy integration into new developments.
• Align grid upgrades with housing & retrofit: accelerated through strategic Spatial Energy Plans, Local Area Energy Plans and anticipatory investment.
• Ensure grid-ready buildings and places: planning and building regulations that support EV charging, flexibility and smart systems.
• Support community and neighbourhood energy schemes: Warm Homes Fund and Local Power Plan backing for local generation and flexibility.

CLIMATE RESILIENCE

• Establish a national adaptation strategy and Office for Resilience: clear leadership, cross‑government coordination, and long‑term funding for adaptation.Ìý
• Embed climate‑safe planning and building regulations: overheating, flood risk, water scarcity and resilience embedded in all new development.Ìý
• Deliver resilient retrofit for existing buildings: shading, ventilation, flood resistance, water efficiency integrated into retrofit programmes.
• Scale nature‑based resilience everywhere: SuDS, green roofs, wetlands, street trees, and river restoration to protect homes and improve local environments.
• Build local authority capacity and green skills: funding for training of resilience professionals to deliver climate‑safe places and good green jobs.

NATURE & NATURAL RESOURCES

• Set a national nature‑positive target and definition: provide clear direction, measurable indicators, and accountability.
• Develop nature‑positive planning and building design guidance: ecological impact assessments, ecosystem performance indicators, and strengthened BNG.Ìý
• Embed Local Nature Recovery Strategies across development: support decision-making across land allocation, housing, energy and infrastructure.
• Introduce fiscal incentives for nature recovery: Treasury reforms to reward biodiversity gains and natural capital value.
• Demonstrate public sector leadership: public estate as a demonstrator of nature‑positive estates

REGENERATIVE PLACES

• Adopt long‑term strategies for place: stability for housing and retrofit programmes which transcend political cycles and support long-term investment.
• Scale place‑based delivery models: integrate housing with community, nature, climate, health and local economy.Ìý
• Empower local authorities as place stewards: resources and powers to convene local partners and align priorities.
• Reform fiscal value systems: reward long-term social and ecological outcomes.
• Create space for local innovation: devolution frameworks that enable bottom-up solutions and community-led action.Ìý

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Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

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This online tool brings the Incentive to life. It takes the user on a journey as a prospective homebuyer, showing how a simple reform to Stamp Duty could reshape the choices we make about the energy performance of our homes. It walks you through the process as you select a house type and price, then, after the stamp duty has been calculated, you can add upgrades like insulation, heat pumps, or double glazing to explore how this home could be improved, and discover how much rebate you’d get back.

The calculator is not to be used as a tool for stamp duty calculation – it’s a concept illustration of how policy reform could transform the housing market. It is aimed at showing policymakers and campaigners how a modest adjustment to Stamp Duty can help homebuyers value energy efficiency, plan upgrades at the point of purchase, and accelerate the UK’s journey to warmer, lower-cost, low-carbon homes.

Policy Partners

Thank you to our Policy Partners for their ongoing and generous support

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Policy & Advocacy

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Heavy industries such as steel and cement are among the UK’s most significant sources of industrial emissions, and decarbonising these sectors is essential if the UK is to meet its net zero by 2050 target.

Embodied carbon from construction materials alone accounts for around one in ten tonnes of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. Yet there is currently no national regulation to reduce these emissions, despite strong industry support and the urgency of our climate commitments.

This consultation as a first step in developing the policy framework needed to grow the market for low carbon industrial products. UKGBC have used our response as an opportunity to support measures that will enable the construction sector to make informed, low-carbon choices, and accelerate the transition to a sustainable built environment.

Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

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The post Growing the Market for Low Carbon Industrial Products Consultation Response appeared first on UKGBC.

UKGBC welcomes this consultation and the government’s renewed commitment to improving energy efficiency in the social rented sector (SRS). Achieving net zero and addressing fuel poverty must include the SRS, which provides homes for some of the lowest-income households in the country. Too many homes remain cold, inefficient, and costly to run, and upgrading them is essential to tackling inequality, improving health outcomes, and meeting climate goals.

Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

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Ensuring that everyone has a safe, healthy, and decent home to live in is vital to public health, individual wellbeing, and the long-term resilience of our housing stock. We therefore strongly support the government’s intention to modernise the Standard, extend it to the private rented sector, and strengthen its alignment with wider energy and climate policy.

UKGBC welcomes the opportunity to respond to the relevant sections of this consultation and support the government in bringing about these reforms which must support decarbonisation, climate resilience, and long-term social and health benefits, from reducing fuel poverty to improving mental and physical health, and helping residents feel more pride in their homes and communities.

Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

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UKGBC wrote a joint letter to Rt Hon Darren Jones MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, calling on Labour to honour its manifesto pledge to increase funding for home energy efficiency to £13.2 billion this Parliament.

The Warm Homes Plan could help save nearly 3 million households £220 on average off their energy bills. If funding is maintained at the trajectory set out in the 2024 Autumn Budget, then 1.5 million households would lose out on this saving. Many of those affected are likely to be vulnerable, as featured in .

We also coordinated a letter from businesses working on home upgrades to ensure the full £13.2bn is delivered. This was signed by many of our retrofit members who will work as government partner to deliver upgrades across the country, as featured in the .

 

 

Update: We are pleased that in the Comprehensive Spending Review on Wednesday 11th July the Government confirmed the full £13.2n would be invested into the Warm Homes Plan. Read our full response here.

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Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

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Policy and Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

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The post Construction Products Reform Consultation Response appeared first on UKGBC.

Policy & Advocacy

Since 2007, we have been bringing together some of the most influential leaders in politics, business, local authorities, civil service and NGOs to accelerate action for a green built environment.

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