About Cambridgeshire

Our Targets

In 2003, the UK Energy White Paper 'Our Energy Future' put forward an ambition of 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. More recently, the Climate Change Act 2008 introduces legally binding targets for an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and at least a 26% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 against the 1990 baseline. There is also a national target for producing 15% of UK's electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020.

Buildings contribute almost half of the UK's carbon emissions. Emissions from transport account for a third of the total. How we heat our homes, the car we drive, the extent to which we use our TVs and computers, the water that we use - and how we source the energy that does these jobs for us - all produce CO₂. The Housing Green Paper 2007 sets aspirational targets for all new homes to reduce carbon emissions by 25% over current building regulations from 2010, by 44% from 2013 and be zero-carbon from 2016. There is also an aspiration for all new non-domestic buildings to be zero carbon from 2019 as announced in the 2008 budget.

At the regional level, the East of England Plan outlines targets for 10% of the region's energy to be met from renewable energy sources increasing to 17% by 2020.

To deliver these targets requires innovative and 'holistic' approaches to building new communities. It is imperative that buildings are built to the highest environmental standards, starting with a minimum of Code for Sustainable Homes Level 3 and BREEAM 'very good' for the initial phases and incrementally increasing the compliance targets for the future phases in line with Government guidelines and Building Regulations.

An essential element to realising these environmental standards will be the use of renewable energy. This could be integrated into the built environment either at building/ dwelling level through the use of micro-renewable technologies such as photovoltaics, solar hot water or heat pumps. Alternatively, larger communal systems running on renewable fuels such as biomass could serve entire communities by generating both heat and power more efficiently than conventional fossil fuel based technologies.