Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE 2004
MR PAUL
KING
Q40 Mr Thomas: You mentioned earlier
your six barriers to sustainable housing, and you said a little
bit about how builders, at least in terms of their relationship
with their investors, were reacting to this. But in your evidence
to the Committee you point out that you could get to a very good
standard, an eco-home standard, with only a 2% increase in the
cost of construction. If that is the case, does it suggest that
in fact builders are not interested in this at all? If they could
get something that would be badged as an eco-home for a 2% increase
in construction costs, surely they would be doing it already.
We have all agreed now the market should be there.
Mr King: You would think so, would
you not? Some interesting evidence in this area is the example
of the Government's Millennium Communities programme, and I understand
that when the tender for the Telford Millennium Community was
put out, at least ten of the major house builders bid furiously
to win that contact, and that was building to the EcoHomes "Excellent"
standard with additional resource efficiency targets on top. I
am well aware that many of the house builders that bid for that
piece of work are building elsewhere below the pass level of eco-homes
as a matter of course, so there is actually no evidence that they
are interested in applying higher standards as a matter of course,
because they can.
Q41 Mr Thomas: As part of your campaign,
have you done any work with consumers, the people who buy houses,
to see whether they would be prepared to buy them? When I go out
on the streets, as we have been doing in the last couple of weeks,
people just point to their roofs and say, "Why can't every
new house have a solar panel? I would be happy to buy a house
like that." If that is in the market, why are the builders
not meeting that? Is it just conservatism within the industry?
Is it a lack of efficiency in the industry? Or is it just cost
cutting to the very last penny?
Mr King: I believe it is very
simple. I think they can sell the houses they put up, and they
do not have to do anything more. The house builders told us one
of our six barriers was the perception that customers did not
want sustainable homes, and I have asked many a house builder
how many consumers come in asking for unsustainable homes, and
they do not seem to get many of those either. That is why through
this campaign we have prioritised our engagement with the industry
directly and with government, because, to be honest, it would
seem logical to put equal weight on consumer demand, but it has
become so obvious that this is a supply side driven industry,
where consumers have no choice, have no say in the quality of
the product that they effectively are forced to buy, that there
is actually little point in channelling resources at this moment
in time into trying to inspire greater consumer demand, because
it would simply lead to greater disappointment.
Q42 Mr Thomas: So if the builders
do it because they can get away with it, why is the Government
not doing more? Of your six barriers, what would you put as number
one priority for the Government to try and tackle?
Mr King: Rather naively, when
I began the campaign, I thought that if the Government was serious
about the sorts of sustainable construction standards that it
referred to in the Sustainable Communities Plan, could it not
simply require that new houses be built to those standards, and
make it quite clear that houses not built to those standards would
not be built?
Q43 Mr Thomas: Is this building regulations
or planning, or both?
Mr King: It is both, and therein
lies a problem. You have two systems, neither of which was designed
to deliver sustainable homes. The building regulations still currently
legally cannot address sustainability, which is why WWF has sponsored
the Andrew Stunell Secure and Sustainable Buildings Bill, to make
that amendment to the Buildings Act. There is a tremendous amount
of confusion at all levels about the relative roles of planning
and building regulations in determining the sustainability of
homes. Coupled with that, you have an accepted wisdom that the
building regulations can only be a regulatory floor, and even
in those terms, I have heard the House Builders Federation describe
the building regulations as something aspirational. We are in
a situation where we do not currently have a legal or policy mechanism
to require homes to be built to the standards that a growing number
of bodies are realising we must be meeting.
Q44 Mr Thomas: One final aspect of
that is if we were to have that Bill passed, or building regulations
to insist on certain qualities, eco-home standards or whatever,
what about the other part of the supply side, that the suppliers
of energy efficiency, materials, solar panels, whatever it may
be? Is that being looked at in your campaign?
Mr King: To some extent it is.
We are also looking at some quite pragmatic initiatives such as
the formation of buyers' clubs, which would enable developers
to club together and bulk order some products and materials, which
might be more difficult to obtain and more difficult to obtain
at a competitive price, to actually ease supply and, from the
supplier's point of view a consistent and clear demand helps them
to increase supply. But I would emphasize, going back to your
reference to the figure that we have put forward of achieving
the sorts of improvements we are talking about, the no more than
two per cent on the average build cost, that that does not take
into account anything in terms of the economies of scale that
could easily be achieved, nor does it take into account the whole
life costings and the benefits of building to those higher standards,
nor does it take into account the externalities, the remediation
costs we will face down the road if we do not build to those standards
now. None of those costs are factored into that already modest
additional cost.
Q45 Chairman: I may have misunderstood
something you have said, but correct me if I am wrong. I think
you said there was not any point in encouraging consumer demand
for more environmentally sustainable houses because they would
simply be disappointed when they tried to buy them. In the context
of Joan Walley's question to the previous witness about the need
for environmental education, public education, do you really think
there is no point in encouraging people to want better? Do you
really think that if they did want better, the market will not
try to provide it?
Mr King: I certainly believe that
consumer awareness, education, is of course a positive thing.
The point I was trying to make was simply that in a small campaign,
with distinctly limited resources, we did not feel that that was
the priority in terms of where we would achieve most impact, given
the current situation. We actually think that consumer education
is going to be increasingly important, and to that extent we look
forward to progress with the home information pack that is currently
being discussed as part of the Housing Bill, because we believe
that if you look at the sort of transformation that has taken
place in the white goods sector in terms of increased consumer
awareness of the energy efficiency and so on of products, we can
quite quickly see a shift in people's perceptions in relation
to energy labelling of homes. We so support, of course, and we
have throughout the campaign supported those sorts of initiatives.
I was merely emphasizing where we have found that we must prioritise
our efforts.
Q46 Mr Francois: You mentioned one
of the areas you have looked at was investor support, and that
you had actually found some positive reactions from investors
about being quite concerned about some of these issues. Do you
by any chance have any figures or statistics on what percentage
of house builders' costs is represented by section 106 agreements,
where they give something back to the community in return for
being allowed to build?
Mr King: I do not have those figures
to hand. I can probably find some further information and send
that through.
Mr Francois: If you could do that, that
would be quite interesting. It would be interesting to know how
much they are paying to give back to communities in return for
planning permission. If you have any information on that at all,
that would be helpful.
Q47 Mr Chaytor: The priorities in
your campaign are not working on consumers but working on the
builders themselves and working to improve building regulations.
You see these as the key drivers for change.
Mr King: The way we approached
this was that we saw some excellent examples of best practice
out there. Unfortunately, they were very much the exception rather
than the rule and we said how could you move a sector wholesale
in this direction, not overnight but over a period of time, and
we said surely there are three key constituencies that can influence
this sector: there is the government as the regulator; there are
the shareholders as investors; and there is the consumer. What
we have done is prioritise our engagement with those different
audiences over time. We are looking to plan and we are beginning
to work much more closely with agencies such as CABE to bring
the sustainability agenda much more into line with the broader
quality of design agenda because we think that is also important.
We do not foresee a time when people will necessarily rush to
demand sustainable homes but what we do foresee is people becoming
increasingly aware and increasingly wanting to demand better quality
homes, which is what it amounts to because most of the environmental
benefits yield economic and social benefits with them, and we
believe simply that consumers deserve better quality homes.
Q48 Mr Chaytor: Just a few moments
ago it seems you were giving us a fairly negative, depressing
assessment as to the possibility for change. Then you pre-empted
the question I was going to ask about white goods because it does
seem to me, as I look around the shops now, that there is an increasing
acceptance of the energy efficiency rating on white goods and
the price differential is actually coming down. Is this not the
positive side that if you start from consumer education and awareness
you can impact on the manufacturers and producers and ultimately
costs come down because consumers see that if they pay £20
more for a fridge that is A-rated they will recoup that within
a year or two in terms of energy savings? I suppose my question
is really are you an optimist or a pessimist about the potential
for driving change through consumer education and awareness?
Mr King: I am an optimist but
in the medium to longer term.
Q49 Mr Chaytor: What is the difference
between a long-term optimist and a pessimist?
Mr King: Let me put it like this:
I think for government to say we need not act because the market
will take care of itself, the consumers will become better informed
and they will demand a better quality product and thereafter the
market will supply, is too optimistic. There are some interesting
observations that can be made about consumers' behaviour in buying
homes. Consumers generally spend an awful lot more time reading
brochures and researching options when they are buying a new car
than when they are buying a new home even though in most cases
it is their single largest investment. Most often people are under
enormous pressure to find a home and they are generally felt forced
to accept what they can afford in a place they can afford it where
they need to be based. I therefore think there are many other
factors affecting the low level of choice that people currently
experience and that it will take more than the provision of information
to counteract that.
Q50 Mr Chaytor: Can you tell us a
bit about the report you did on the Thames Gateway and the concept
of zero waste, zero energy because I am a little confused about
this EcoHomes standard and Z2 standard. Could you clarify what
you have said in the Thames Gateway report and what the different
standards are to which you aspire.
Mr King: One of the sources of
inspiration for the more sustainable homes campaign was the BedZED
development, that is to say the Beddington zero fossil energy
development in Sutton. That was the first housing development
to take on the challenge of how can we enable people to live a
one-planet lifestyle. I must say it has not yet achieved it but
it gets a lot closer to that than our traditional developments
do. The important thing was that it has been recognised at BedZED
as time has gone on that you can achieve a lot from improving
the quality of the buildings but it is also vitally important
to combine good-quality building with a well-designed environment
because many of the environmental benefits that arise from people
living at BedZED arise because they are inspired and it is made
easy for them to live a much more sustainable lifestyle. It is
easy for you if you live at BedZED to recycle your waste because
you have got segregated bins under the sink. It is easy at BedZED
to give up your car because there is a car club which is easy
to use, it is cheap and the car is always clean and serviced for
you, and therefore the incentive to give up your car is considerable.
It is easy to consume renewable energy because there is an on-site
CHP providing that from woodchip, and so on and so forth. That
was our inspiration. However, we recognise that given the current
situation of the mainstream house building industry we were not
going to leap from today's practices to a BedZED type scenario
overnight. We therefore looked to see whether there was something
in between and the EcoHomes standard quite usefully provides a
ladder in which house builders can achieve between a "fail",
"pass", "good", "very good" or "excellent"
rating. That gives house builders some positive encouragement
in terms of getting on to that ladder and then hopefully progressing
up it rather than saying it is all or nothing, you either have
to leap to this particular advanced scenario or do not bother.
This report aimed to look at the relative benefits of those two
scenarios.
Q51 Mr Chaytor: Does the EcoHomes
standard apply to individual builders or individual buildings?
Mr King: To buildings. It is an
assessment of a building or a broader development.
Q52 Mr Chaytor: Fine. Is this now
used widely or is it used at all or is it just an aspiration?
Mr King: It is used increasingly
widely but nowhere near enough. Part of the appeal from a pragmatic
point of view was that it was designed with an advisory group
which contained house builders and therefore it was tested as
it was developed as being acceptable to house builders. Again,
what we have seen is that there has been very little take-up where
there has not been the requirement to use it. Shining examples
in this respect are the Housing Corporation which has incorporated
the standard (admittedly so far at the lower levels) in its requirements
for all social housing providers and English Partnerships which
requires much higher levels, the sort of levels which we believe
should be applied across the board. I referred earlier to the
Millennium Communities example, and what is slightly disappointing
is the evidence that where the requirement is set house builders
are quite happy to jump over the bar but where the requirement
is not set they have no inclination to do so.
Q53 Mr Chaytor: Just one further
thing in terms of establishing the bars. You have been involved
in the Sustainable Buildings Task Group and you have been supporting
heavily the Sustainable Buildings Bill. How confident are you
that those are going to raise the level of the bar and are there
specific things, recommendations of the Task Force or specific
clauses in the Bill that you attach great importance to?
Mr King: If I can take the Task
Force first, broadly the WWF was very happy with the recommendations
of that report, largely because they reiterated recommendations
that we had made throughout this campaign in relation to regulations,
planning and incentives information and also building on the EcoHomes
standard to propose a Code for Sustainable Buildings. My big worry
is that what is already a somewhat limited initiative in terms
of the Code for Sustainable Buildings (which could only apply
if adopted as recommended) would still only apply to government
contracts and could be further watered down. I begin to hear rumblings
within ODPM that suggest that perhaps that recommendation could
be further watered down. To be honest, if it is watered down at
all from the current recommendations will have nothing better
than the status quo.
Q54 Mr Chaytor: This is the issue
of public procurement?
Mr King: It is an initiative which
recommends that as a condition of doing business in relation to
government, house builders must achieve a code of sustainable
building very much based on the EcoHomes system.
Q55 Mr Chaytor: Which is higher than
current building regulations for private houses?
Mr King: Yes.
Q56 Mr Francois: Mr King, I declare
an interest in that my constituency in Essex is not actually under
the Thames Gateway area but it abuts it just to the north so I
know a little bit about the area. There are issues here about
the design standards to which you build homes but I think there
are also issues about the actual sale of the building itself because
that obviously has implications for infrastructure as well. There
is one proposal within Thames Gateway to build 10,000 homes in
a very concentrated area in and around a place called Purfleet.
In your opinion, is there any way in which you can cram houses
in on that scale and still be sustainable?
Mr King: I confess I am not especially
familiar with the particular site although I am aware of it. I
think there is something of a myth about the evils of high density.
Generally people have a gut reaction against high-density development
and they conjure all sorts of alarming images in their minds.
However, if you show people pictures of Cornish fishing villages
or Georgian terraces or the centre of Barcelona, it can be appreciated
that high density does not have to mean that sort of negative
environment. Clearly what you can achieve with high density is
much greater amenity and "walkability", which has all
sorts of impacts in reducing the need for transport and so on
to get around. Needless to say, however, the environmental benefits
that come with density have got to be balanced with the design
issues surrounding broader social sustainability, and what we
cannot be doing is building communities which achieve low environmental
impact if they are not places people want to live in. That is
why in theory a vision of sustainable communities, which looks
at these things in the round, and as was to some extent defined
in the terms of the Egan Review where amongst other things they
put an emphasis on enabling people to live a more sustainable
lifestyle, is important.
Q57 Mr Francois: I accept part of
what you say about density, and I think there is a very valid
debate to be had about that, but there are also issues of scale
and the infrastructure you need. Are you not concerned about the
ability to build on the scale of effectively one development of
10,000 houses unless you have the entire infrastructure mapped
out to go with it?
Mr King: Absolutely, and one of
the concerns we have is the extent to which government may not
be being sufficiently joined up in terms of budgeting for that
infrastructure with the housing plans, in transport in particular.
We are actually involved at the moment with a proposal for a development
in the Thames Gateway and we are working in partnership with BioRegional,
which was the catalyst for BedZED, called Z2 which is the real
manifestation of that hypothetical scenario aiming to achieve
zero carbon and zero waste on a development of 2,000 homes (homes
for 5,000 people) and the key point we will be seeking to get
across in our discussions with government about that is that it
is infrastructure and services led and that comes before even
the factors surrounding the design of the homes.
Q58 Mr Chaytor: Very briefly if I
could ask a short question and short answer. Following Mark's
question, does WWF have a view about tall buildings? If you are
opposed to building outwards, is it not inevitably logical that
you should support building upwards?
Mr King: Entirely possibly. I
cannot say that we have a policy for or against tall buildings.
Q59 Mr Chaytor: Should you not be
having a policy for tall buildings as a means of dealing with
the density problem and blocking the continuous spreading outwards
and eating up of green belt?
Mr King: I would be wary of being
prescriptive about design issues, which I think really have to
be taken into account in the relevant local context. The sorts
of standards that we are advocating can be applied nationally
but they need to be applied sensitively in a local context and
to start proposing that a sustainable building has to look like
a tower block or it has to look like BedZED is counter-productive.
Mr Chaytor: It could be a solution to
the Purfleet problem though, could it not?
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