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Morrell says industry faces biggest change since Victorian times

18/3/2010

Emerging findings of government review into low carbon transition.

Lack of integration of the supply chain, a gap between design criteria for buildings in use and performance on completion, and client focus on capital cost rather than whole life cost are among the barriers to construction's transition to a low carbon industry. These are some of the initial perceptions of the industry review being chaired by the government's chief construction adviser Paul Morrell.

The review of the low carbon construction innovation and growth team (IGT) aims to identify how construction can best deliver the future carbon reduction commitments for 2020 and beyond. It will publish its final report later in the year, including recommendations to government to help inform policy development.

The interim findings identify four major opportunities for the sector if the challenges and barriers are effectively addressed:

• to carry out a huge programme of work, stretched out over at least the next 40 years
• to make use of that workload to reform the structure and practice of the industry
• to export the products and skills of a modernised industry
• to excite future generations of potential recruits into an industry with a noble cause.

Specific issues affecting housing are:

• building on the progress being made towards the sector meeting its regulatory target in 2016, while addressing issues of affordability, coupled with the technical constraints associated with smaller sites
• stimulating demand for the domestic retrofit programme
• assembling an accredited supply chain for that programme, with the necessary skills and practices
• striking the balance between whole house measures and centralised and distributed energy policy, so carbon is reduced in the most cost-effective way
• the need for a central knowledge hub to collect and disseminate learning gained from around the country, and provide leadership for industry to start planning for delivery.

Issues affecting non-domestic buildings are:

• the specific challenges of addressing the existing stock, and particularly the problem of frequently separate ownership and occupation
• the need to stimulate market demand for products and works (new build and retrofit) designed for carbon reduction
• a linked need for innovative means of financing the transition to low carbon
• adoption of project level decision-making on the basis of appraisals founded on a whole life approach.

Morrell said "No one should underestimate the sheer scale of the opportunity the transition to a low carbon economy will offer the construction industry. The requirement for low carbon construction is probably the biggest change management programme that the industry has faced since Victorian times."

The emerging findings are available at www.bis.gov.uk.