Our buildings and homes produce emissions that are harmful to the environment, which causes constant calls for increased energy efficiency for homes worldwide. If you’ve bought a house in the UK you will have noticed EPC ratings, perhaps considering how the rating will impact on the running of your home. You may even have considered trying to improve your EPC to help make a sale. In the US you might be aware of your state’s building energy code. With government schemes and initiatives backing the fight to make our homes more energy efficient, we decided to take a look in to the bigger picture. Are our homes really becoming more energy efficient overall?
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Energy Efficiency in UK Homes
EPC ratings are a legal requirement in the UK. They label a property from A to G, with A being the most energy efficient. Looking at ratings for all UK dwellings over the past 3 years there has been an increase in A-B ratings, showing a shift towards energy efficiency. This may be due to new builds being much more energy efficient, as they have to comply with certain laws. For example any windows and external doors installed in new build properties need to meet certain U-values, which measure how effectively they insulate. Based on fuel costs, where just 8% of total dwellings have an A or B EPC rating in the 2014-2015 period, 76% of new dwellings are listed as A or B. Based on CO2 emissions, where just 10% of all dwellings have an A or B rating in the 2014-2015 period, 83% of new dwellings have an A or B rating. New buildings are performing in a much more energy efficient manner which puts the UK in good stead for the future. The current UK government requires all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016, which may be a factor that is pushing things forward.
There are big changes that can be made by addressing the energy efficiency of buildings. In 2009 buildings accounted for around 43% of the UK’s total carbon emissions. Between 2004 and 2013 domestic energy consumption per household fell by 17%, in part due to the installation of building insulation. In 2014 overall carbon emissions fell 9%, the largest year on year reduction since 1880 for a year with economic growth. This suggests that things are moving in the right direction, but the energy efficiency of our houses is not a simple thing to improve upon.
Energy Efficiency in US Homes
In the US, energy use in homes has improved around 17% over the last 30 years due to the introduction of State Building Energy Codes that are updated every few years. In 1992 only 4/50 US states and 2/5 US territories had a residential energy code that met with the energy policy act’s requirements. By 2008 this had increased to 38/50 states and 4/5 territories. Awareness of energy efficient building is certainly being raised in the US to produce improvements, but is this enough?
Between 1980 and 2005 the US population grew 30%. This means more housing, so greater total carbon emissions to combat by increasing energy efficiency of each individual dwelling. To compound this issue further, housing grew at a faster rate than the population, increasing by 40%. This equals a mammoth job to reduce total carbon emissions from houses as a whole.
Looking at this from an even wider perspective, the US produces 23% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, the highest amount of carbon dioxide of any country in the world. They are followed by China at 21%. Other countries produce so much less carbon that the next on the list of largest carbon dioxide emissions in the world would be US buildings at 9%. Carbon dioxide emissions from US buildings alone exceed the combined emissions of Japan, France and the UK.
Energy Efficiency Worldwide
Of the world’s 5 most energy efficient cities, 2 have a particular focus on their homes. Copenhagen at number 3 encourages ‘green roofs’ to insulate their homes. London at number 5 offers incentives for improving home energy efficiency.
The demand for energy efficient building materials is growing worldwide and demand is predicted to increase 103% by 2023. With buildings responsible for more than 40% of global energy use and one third of global greenhouse gas emissions, improving the energy efficiency of our buildings can make a huge global difference.
So Are Our Homes Becoming More Energy Efficient?
Evidence suggests we are on the right path but there’s plenty to contend with before we can truly say that our homes are becoming more energy efficient across the globe. Many homes are improving on an individual level, as are certain cities and countries. However this is constantly being offset against the rate at which new dwellings are being built. Population increase, as well as decrease in household size call for buildings to grow rapidly. The increases in housing can be so vast that reducing carbon emissions overall is simply an impossibility. This being said, every effort to reduce our homes energy efficiency, however big or small pushes things in the right direction. If we’re striving for more energy efficient homes in the future we need to start now, and if enough of us pay serious attention to the energy efficiency of our homes then we will see improvements in the long term.
