One of my projects is a small new house in central Cambridge.  The clients are keen environmentalists and working through the design is bringing me right up to date with the latest government policies.

A click through from the BREEAM website to the DCLG - Code for Sustainable Homes takes you to Policy Paper: "2010 to 2015 government policy:energy efficiency in buildings" and
Appendix 7: code for sustainable homes, which states: This policy was withdrawn on 27th March 2015.

More recently the government also scrapped the Zero Carbon Homes policy planned for 2016 and the corresponding idea for "allowable solutions" where funds are put into off -site carbon savings.  According to the Guardian UK Green Building Council, housebuilders, energy leaders and environmentalists are all critical of the move.

As I swing from link to link trying to get my head round latest theory and up to date approaches to energy conservation it strikes me just how much work has been done with the 2016 deadline in mind. I reason that it is not wasted as it has expanded our knowledge and understanding but I really feel for the authors, researchers and house builders working to be ahead of the game.  So much careful work, so many clear explanations and tested solutions, abandoned.

Yet I am sympathetic to the government wanting to make building housing easier.   The 'housing crisis' is real but it is hard for some of us to see.  It is misleading too because it implies that it has to do with people having somewhere to live - a roof over their head.  If we aren't seeing more people on the street then they must be living somewhere so it's not so bad -is it?  I suspect it is the doctors and teachers and police, separate to the social workers, who see the housing crisis even though they are having to deal with its fallout, not the issue of housing itself.

There is a mismatch - governments want more (affordable we hope) homes built and they want the private sector to do this.  At the same time they need to meet energy targets and buildings are a major contributor to Green House Gas emissions therefore they want buildings to be more energy efficient and they want the private sector to do this too.  It seems this has proved too costly and cumbersome for the building companies.  It isn't the companies' fault because ultimately they need to make profits to keep functioning.

This starts to look like a case study from Joel Bakan's book "The Corporation" published 2003. I bought this years ago when I first got excited about the idea of corporate social responsibility.  Bakan stamps all over that idea and describes the corporation (limited company) as a pathological entity, self serving by design and with no conscience social, environmental or otherwise.

State building of energy efficient social housing.  Is it impossible?  I don't know.  Time to start looping though some political links out there and getting my head round the big picture.

Studio Hobohm - Proposed New House, Cambridge