The UK Green Building Council has joined hands with other building industry leaders to launch a campaign for greener buildings. The UK-GBC says making greener, more energy efficient buildings could be one of the most effective methods to reduce carbon emissions.
The campaign has been launched ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit to be held in a few months, with the aim of effectively positioning the subject of green buildings on the agenda for the summit.
The UK-GBC says that while the Kyoto Protocol has highlighted factors such as transport, deforestation and energy generation as major contributors to climate change, the environmental impact of building sector has been largely ignored. Buildings are responsible for around half of the UK’s total carbon emissions, the council claims.
The council insists that making buildings more energy-efficient would be one of the most impactful and cost-effective ways to cut carbon emissions. Paul King, the council’s chief executive says that including the subject of buildings in the Copenhagen negotiations would be an important step towards encouraging the setting up of targets for carbon reductions in the industry.
While the UK has set targets to ensure that new homes in the coming years will have zero carbon footprints, the council says more needs to be done to cut emissions from existing buildings.
The UK-GBC campaign presents several suggestions for the Copenhagen climate change talks towards creating a framework for reducing building industry emissions. These begin with first recognising buildings as a priority for achieving reductions in emissions. The council also suggests enabling market based measures to support investment in projects that are energy efficient. Other measures included in the campaign include introducing capacity and transfer technology to facilitate improvements in energy efficiency in buildings.
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