Sustainable Standstill: Why major housebuilders aren’t going green

Sustainability Solved

Season 5, Episode 184: Sustainable Standstill: Why major housebuilders aren’t going green This episode we interview Ian Pritchett, the co-founder of Greencore Homes in Oxfordshire. They build airtight, energy-efficient, timber frame houses, from their factory in Bicester. Ian shines a spotlight on the challenges of the ‘business-as-usual’ housebuilding planning system and champions the need for a new national planning policy that is fit for the future.

The problem

· Charlie asked Ian what the planning system is doing to respond to climate change challenges and pressures around development.

· Ian is frustrated at the planning system. Trying to do something different and better is a challenge. It gets closer scrutiny and there is more bureaucracy.

· National Government and housebuilders are focused on volume, not sustainability. They are more interested in avoiding a housing crisis, than a climate crisis.

Environmental impact

· Ian reports that every time a new house is built it generates over one hundred tons of carbon emissions (CO2), plus the use of the house will emit carbon. The total carbon budget for Oxfordshire’s five local authorities is 26.3m tonnes of CO2 by 2050. With their plan to build 100,000 new homes in the next 10 years, they will use between 80-100% of that budget on new housing alone.

· Sustainability regulations are dumbed down to keep volumes up. It is a choice between the quantity or the quality of housing. Ian explains that we can have both.

· Charlie asks Ian if we can build our way out of a housing crisis and why does volume win Government votes.

· Ian explains that we are living longer, there are smaller households and spare housing is not where employment is concentrated, hence why the Southeast is the focus of housebuilding.

A planning system fit for our future

· Ian wants a new national planning policy that is fit for the future and focuses on more important areas such as energy, carbon, wildlife, biodiversity, and community.

· Greencore’s mission is to move the house building industry from an unsustainable to sustainable model answering questions such as can you lock up more carbon than you emit? Can you generate more energy than you use? Can you improve wildlife and biodiversity? · Ian talks about how Greencore works to the One Planet Living framework. It is building places where people want to live and can live sustainably, can live happily and healthily.

· Charlie and Ian discuss the issue of landowner wealth and a need to involve the local community to ensure they benefit.

Are greener houses more expensive? · Will talks about how Cardiff University proved that an environmentally friendly home could be more affordable than a normal home.

· Ian reports that there are some higher costs when building sustainably at a smaller scale. However, these costs will come down when building at volume.

· Charlie offers an example of one of his affordable housing projects and how lower running costs could be included in rent and mortgage agreements.

· Ian talks about the idea of houses built to encourage zero energy bills and the problems with this not being valued by residents.

The problem with parking space

· Ian is concerned about housing schemes being dominated by parking and car ownership. He sees a future where we make more use of shared sustainable transport and offer examples of where this is happening. Decisions also need to be made around green space vs car parking space.

· Charlie and Will discuss the pros and cons of electric car sharing in housing projects.

How to innovate faster

· Ian talks about how economics will drive innovation in this space faster. One way is to reduce stamp duty on low-carbon homes which would drive demand, supply, and legislation.

· Will and Charlie discuss getting a better mortgage for a low-carbon home, and Charlie uses the Ecology Building Society as an example.

· Governor of the Bank of England [Mark Carney] announced at COP26 in Glasgow said that there $130 trillion of institutional money now committed to net zero.

· The conclusion from Ian is that the market and economics will drive change, not legislation.

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