Working with government
For the last five years WWF has been working closely with government to ensure the environment is a key factor in developing new homes as well as improving our existing housing stock.
Through WWF's One Million Sustainable Homes campaign we have been closely involved with the introduction of Energy Performance Certificates, which indicate a home's energy efficiency, as well as the Code for Sustainable Homes which sets ambitious targets towards zero carbon homes. We are driving forward progress in these areas through our positions on the Stakeholder Panel for the Reform of the Home Buying and Selling Process and the 2016 Zero Carbon Task Force respectively.
WWF believes one of the major barriers in the way of making our homes more energy efficient is the lack of fiscal incentives to encourage home owners and landlords to make energy efficiency improvements. Therefore, WWF is lobbying Treasury and local government to call for a range of incentives, such as:
- stamp duty rebates;
- council tax rebates;
- reductions in VAT on energy efficiency improvements;
- low interest loans; and
- feed-in tariffs which reward homeowners who generate their own electricity.
In the 2007 budget, the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown announced that government would ensure that by 2020 all homes would meet their "cost-effective energy efficiency potential".
WWF's One Planet Homes new report, How Low?, shows that in order to meet the government's own carbon reduction targets from the housing sector and more importantly to stabilise carbon emissions at a level sufficient to prevent the worst ravages of climate change, we need a fundamental step change in government policies, and a significant ramping up of energy efficiency measures, including low and zero carbon technologies. Find out more by reading our summary for policy makers.