Cutting Carbon Emissions in Commercial Building Stock

Cutting Carbon Emissions in Commercial Building Stock

By Ruth MacEachern

Product Manager

The UK government is working toward an ambitious target of reducing carbon emissions by 80% over the next 30 years.  This goal requires businesses to review their environmental impact and find opportunities to improve sustainability while reducing pollution.

The challenges of such an ambitious goal means that commercial businesses need to find a way to fund major changes to their buildings as well as their ways of working.

The built environment accounts for around 44% of UK emissions, and 98% of the UK’s building stock is more than five years old – which means that it may not be designed to prioritise environmental impact.  This is a dual edged sword.  On the one hand, there is a clear opportunity within the sector to significantly reduce emissions, but at the same time, there are big infrastructure hurdles to overcome in order to achieve these goals.

Over the past few years, various changes to legislation and schemes have been introduced that will motivate landlords and tenants to address their emissions.  These includes the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, the Green Deal and amendments to Part L building regulations.

Despite these schemes, there are still challenges in finding funding and investment in making major changes to building stock – particularly following the impact of COVID-19 on the UK economy.

Improving Commercial Building Stock

In an ideal world, the approach to creating environmentally sustainable commercial buildings would be to start from scratch and design efficiency into the fabric from the beginning, however this is not possible due to the vast investment required and the sheer volume of existing buildings that would need to be replaced.

A more sustainable and cost-effective approach is to retrofit existing buildings with modern technology in order to reduce impact.  More energy efficient buildings have a benefit of requiring less energy to run which means lower energy bills in the long term. 

Ventilation plays a vital role in the architecture of any building and can be a highly effective way of improving both air quality and energy consumption. 

You can find out more about how Envirovent’s products can help you reduce emissions and save money on fuel bills as a result by contacting one of our local specialists and discussing your needs with them.