New homes need to lead the green revolution

Scotland has little chance of meeting its ambitious emissions targets if new homes are not eco friendly

The green transition is difficult, and will get more so. Shifting from fossil fuels to renewables will be vital if we are to prevent unthinkable changes to our planet. But so deeply engrained is oil and gas in everyday life, it will require all our ingenuity, bravery and resources to make the change.

But some questions are easier to answer than others. And the question of whether we should ensure homes are more eco-friendly, by insulating them well and then heating them with low emission systems, seems to have a very straightforward answer: of course we should.

Almost 22 per cent of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings, and the lion’s share of that figure is caused by burning fuel for heat. If we are to achieve our ambitious goal of net zero emissions by 2045, reducing this household combustion will be key.

The challenge for Scotland is that much of our old, draughty housing stock is hard to convert to lowercarbon forms of heating, and our weather hardly helps. While heat pumps are expected to save many householders money over time, homeowners in some of Scotland’s oldest homes will see their bills go up.

But new-build homes have an opportunity to lead the way. Given they are being built from scratch, it should be easier to design them to require less heating. And then, by installing eco-friendly boilers from the start, expensive retrofitting will not be necessary.

All of which makes the latest intervention from housebuilders – to claim these regulations will deter the building of new houses – unwelcome. Were their warnings to be heeded, their new builds would join the list of older homes needing expensive remedial work. And, before then, their homes would continue to add to Scotland’s greenhouse gas challenge.

Homebuilders are, of course, under pressure. High interest rates and falling home prices mean the glorious paydays of recent history are gone. But it would be wrong to ask the environment (and future homeowners) to pick up the tab as developers maintain their margins.