BRE Trust, the owner of BRE, the UK’s leading centre of expertise on the built environment, is pleased to announce a new publication, Energy Efficiency in New and Existing Buildings: Comparative Costs and CO₂ Savings, which reviews ways to improve the energy efficiency of both new and existing buildings.
The report, published by IHS BRE Press, considers the relative impact on UK CO₂ savings targets of constructing new, zero-carbon buildings as opposed to improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings.

Carbon dioxide emissions from UK buildings accounted for approximately 40% of total UK CO₂ emissions in 2006. The UK government has stated its aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.
 
In this report, existing data are used to explore the extent to which improving the energy efficiency of the existing UK building stock would be a more cost-effective route for achieving CO₂ savings than constructing new buildings, which require higher levels of energy performance to meet low- and zero-carbon targets.

This is because existing buildings are expected to form the majority of the UK's building stock for many years to come since approximately three-quarters of houses and 60% of non-domestic buildings in 2050 are likely to have been built before 2010.
 
'While moving towards a zero-carbon objective for all new buildings can undoubtedly achieve a significant reduction in CO₂ emissions in the future, existing buildings will form the majority of the UK's building stock for many years to come,' said Fiona MacKenzie, co-author of the report.

'Therefore, it is vital to focus on the energy efficiency of the existing stock as well as new buildings if we are to achieve the government's challenging emission reduction targets.'
 
Energy Efficiency in New and Existing Buildings: Comparative Costs and CO₂ Savings is available from www.brebookshop.com, reference FB 26.