Prince of Wales urges industry to sign up to “nearly Zero Energy” buildings

Photo: Xinhua/REX Shutterstock

Contractors, developers and consultants are being urged to join Skanska, Hammerson and JLL in a new initiative led by the Prince of Wales to deliver the “nearly Zero Energy Buildings” required by the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive from 2020.

At yesterday’s “Buildings Day” at the UN’s Cop 21 Climate Change conference, the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (CLG) unveiled its “Moving towards net zero buildings” commitment to ensure that the EU directive is properly implemented. 

The Prince of Wales’s campaign came alongside two other initiatives centred on the built environment:

• individual corporate pledges on sustainability from more than 50 UK businesses in the UK Green Building Council, plus more than 100 global companies. The companies making pledges include The Crown Estate, Marks & Spencer, British Land, LendLease, Land Securities, Derwent, Argent and Kingfisher.
• the launch of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, which brings together 18 national governments including France, Germany, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Cameroon and Senegal and 60 organisations, including the RICS and the European Construction Industry Federation with a shared mission to build greater climate resilience into future cities and infrastructure. The alliance is a joint initiative between the French government as host of COP21 and the UN’s Environment Programme.

Meanwhile, the CLG is calling on national governments to fully implement the EU directive, which was originally published in 2002 and updated in 2010. Article 9 requires member states to ensure that by 31 December 2020, all new buildings are nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB), while new buildings occupied and owned by public authorities are nZEB from 31 December 2018.

Article 2 defines an nZEB as “…a building that has a very high energy performance, as determined in accordance with Annex I. The nearly zero or very low amount of energy required should be covered to a very significant extent by energy from renewable sources, including energy from renewable sources produced on site or nearby.”

However, member states may decide not to apply the requirements in specific and justifiable cases where cost benefit analysis over the economic lifecycle of a building is negative.

But the CLG commitment is primarily also a response to a lack of coordinated approach from companies on the industry’s supply side on energy efficient buildings.

Speaking from the Paris conference, a spokesman told Construction Manager: “We hope this is the beginning of a culture change in the real estate sector and the built environment sector, to really work together, as an industry. We need a strong and bold commitment from the regulatory environment, but once the policies exist, it’s a question of how well the companies can work together. We want to create a group dynamic where companies genuinely work together.

“We are responding to the lack of a coordinated approach [from businesses in the sector] to the EU regulations – that’s how the initiative came about.”

The CLG was established 10 years ago, and now has 23 corporate members. The spokesman said it hoped the new commitment would encourage more companies in the built environment to join, and said that it was already fielding enquiries from potential new members.”

The commitment has been signed by 16 major companies operating in different sectors of the  built environment supply chain, including Spanish contractor Ferrovial, developers British Land, Hammerson and Land Securities, and lighting company Philips.

The other signatories so far are Acciona, Doosan, Ferrovial, GlaxoSmithKline, Heathrow, Interface, Kingfisher, Lloyds Banking Group, Sky and Tesco.

Sandrine Dixson-Declève, director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group, said: "Better energy efficiency of buildings will put us on a low carbon pathway while improving the productivity of the economy as a whole. It offers a new business opportunity in its own right.

“The inconsistent performance of the building sector to date in improving energy efficiency highlights the need for a more focused and concerted approach. The new commitment presented today by The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and partnering companies aims to address this gap.”

Jennifer Clark, senior vice president for green and community investment at Skanska, said: “Skanska already has the competence and technology we need to build Deep Green and net zero energy buildings. Through working with our customers and other value chain stakeholders we seek to scale up the delivery of these projects and inspire transformative change in the market.”

David Atkins, chief executive of Hammerson, said: “Establishing a forum for purposeful collaboration between businesses across the property supply chain is a major achievement. It has the potential to drive significant results in our immediate challenge of limiting the damaging effects of climate change.

“The range of businesses represented already within this commitment is clear evidence in itself of the commercial sense that lies within tackling urgently this most pressing problem. Hammerson looks forward to working with our fellow signatories to bring about real change.”