Latest Zero Carbon House Information

Climate Change (Zero-Carbon Development) on August 16th, 2007
Written Ministerial Statement ~ Climate Change (Zero-Carbon Development) December 2006 I am today announcing the publication of environmental measures in new housing as part of a wider package aimed at tackling climate change by moving towards zero-carbon development.

Zero Carbon House

What do we mean by zero carbon?

Taking an holistic approach to the minimisation of carbon emissions from a building by taking action to:

  • Ensure energy efficiency.
  • Use micro-generation and low or zero carbon energy technologies to move toward energy self-sufficiency of the building.

Definitions often ignore the prickly issue of the carbon emissions caused by the sourcing of materials and the construction of the building and its supporting infrastructure. A genuinely zero carbon building will payback the carbon invested in its construction through exporting zero carbon energy back into the national grid.

On this site we believe that this definition of a genuine zero carbon house is the most appropriate. The payback of invested carbon and the aspiration to move toward negative carbon buildings (buildings that have exported more zero carbon energy back into the national grid than was expended in construction) are cornerstones of our zero carbon building definition.