IF Scotland had the powers and access to finance, by far the best way to get Scotland’s homes ready for net zero would be a major programme of public works so households don’t individually have to foot the bill.
In the absence of that, the cost is going to fall on you and the way that will happen is through the Heat in Buildings (HiB) Bill. It is therefore important that the legislation is fit for purpose. It is not.
Way back in 1987, the city of Berkeley in California passed the world’s first Residential Energy Conservation Ordinance (RECO). This, like the HiB, was intended to leverage reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by mandating owners to make energy efficiency upgrades at certain “trigger points” – point of sale, change in tenancy, and extensions of more than 25% of floor area.
The policy was so successful that it was credited with helping California recover from its 2000-2001 electricity crisis, and RECOs have since been adopted by other states and countries.
READ MORE: Willy Wonka Glasgow: Advertising Standards Authority launches probe
On the surface, the HiB and a RECO appear very similar, but if energy efficiency regulations were cars, then a RECO has been on Pimp My Ride, whilst the HiB got its engine from a second-hand Lada and I wouldn’t want to trust the wheels in a race to net zero.
A RECO’s engine is the requirement for detailed inspection and certification, something the HiB consultation rules out. The wheels are the measures it covers, something a RECO takes a holistic approach to and ensures that they are realistic and reasonably affordable, whereas the HiB proposes a basic set of six “simple measures” with a vague and potentially very long list of exemptions.
Even putting those exemptions aside, I have tried to come up with defensible numbers for how many homes will be covered by each of the measures, but I’ve largely drawn a blank, and I doubt that Patrick Harvie (the minister responsible) could do any better. Let’s start with one of them, cavity wall insulation (CWI).
The Scottish House Condition Survey reports that as of 2021, 78% of homes with cavity walls have CWI installed. This leaves us with roughly 356,400 dwellings (around 13% of the housing stock) with unfilled cavities.
However, some indeterminate number of these will have cavities that, for various reasons, cannot or should not be filled. This in itself is hardly ambitious, but it also ignores those properties with CWI where the insulation has settled or been damaged and so needs replacing. We’ll never know how many homes need this as we won’t be inspecting them, and given that poor maintenance is a fundamental problem for improving energy efficiency, it’s a glaring omission that the word maintenance appears not once in the entire consultation document.
Or we could take another measure, draught-proofing. This is so lacking in definition in the consultation that it could apply to almost all or none of the entire housing stock. A similar argument could be made about what is meant by “heating controls”.
Having responded at length to the consultation, I have to conclude that the Scottish Government has only the faintest idea of the scale of the task, insufficient data on which to base the policy solutions, very little understanding of even basic energy efficiency measures, and no real idea of where the money to implement them will come from.
Returning to RECOs, top of my long list of pet hates of Scottish Government policy-making is the regularity with which ministers take a perfectly good policy proposal and butcher it. I don’t know if those behind the HiB were aware of RECOs – although I did recommend that the Scottish Government adopt one in a 2012 report for them.
READ MORE: ‘Forever chemicals’ in 55 per cent of Scottish drinking water
We’ve seen this with the National Investment Bank, the National Care Service, the use of zoning for deploying district heating without first implementing a Heat Supply Act (something Denmark passed in 1979), and many more examples.
I understand that many people may baulk at the idea of being forced to upgrade their properties, but if we don’t tackle energy inefficiency we can kiss our climate change targets goodbye. However, what we will be made to install must be appropriate, affordable, and result in measurable improvements. The proposals in the HiB are way off meeting these criteria and in some cases may leave householders with problems such as overheating.
What is needed now – as Common Weal set out in the Common Home Plan – is a major programme of public works to future-proof our buildings to 2045. This will not come for free, but it’d be cheaper and more effective than leaving our society and economy exposed to the impacts of climate change and a volatile global energy market.
We can, and we must, do better.
Dr Keith Baker, member of the Common Weal Energy Policy Group and research fellow at the Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Management, Glasgow Caledonian University
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel