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11.08.2010 12:31
© Peter Curbishley @flickr.com
Renovating the UK’s one million empty homes to meet demand for affordable housing could cost a fraction of that to build new homes and save carbon emissions, says the British Property Federation (BFA).
Based on the report, New Tricks With Old Bricks, from charity Empty Homes, renovating an empty home creates about a third of the CO2 emissions as building a new one.
Refurbishment could make an initial saving of 35 tonnes of CO2 per property by avoiding the emissions associated with new building materials and the construction process.
The emissions arising during the house-building process as known as ‘embodied’ CO2 and are in addition to the ‘operational’ CO2 generated while the house is occupied.
According to research by Empty House, new homes account for around 50 tonnes of embodied CO2, while refurbished homes only give rise to 15 tonnes.
New homes are admittedly well insulated, so that over their lifetime the low operational CO2 makes up for their high embodied CO2. But this can take up to 50 years – accounting for up to 28% of a new home’s CO2 emissions.
But renovated homes have a much lower embodied CO2 and have a head start over new homes in the environmental stakes.
The BFA is calling for more support from the Government – in particular extending proposed council tax incentives for new builds to renovations of empty homes as well.
Credit: Alisdair MacDiarmid, Glasgow
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