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Scotland could be green housing leader says FOE |
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007 |
The Scottish Government should help homeowners to be more environmentally friendly by changing regulations to allow more homes to generate their own power using onsite microgeneration devices, says Friends of the Earth Scotland.
The recommendations are contained in the report Home Truths commissioned by FOE Scotland and The Co-operative Bank. Other recommendations include the roll-out of a rating system for the energy efficiency of houses and forbidding the re-sale or re-let of the most inefficient properties until they have been improved and reducing the amount of new homebuilding taking place on greenfield sites.
FOE head of policy and research said improving energy use in our homes is vital to tackling climate change.
“We have an enormous challenge to meet in improving our housing stock so it is energy efficient and meets the Scottish government¹s climate change targets. This report shows that government must take action across the board in Scotland and this means new targets, tougher standards, restrictions on the sale of energy inefficient homes and more action from local authorities.“
“The report is very timely as the Scottish government has already instituted a major review of housing standards with the aim of matching those in Scandinavia and wants to launch a major house building programme. If they were to adopt some of the measures we are recommending then Scotland could lead the UK on green housing. For instance all new buildings in Scotland could be generating 15 per cent of their energy needs from small onsite renewables if new national planning guidelines were enforced. Failure to put in place measures that force up the standard of new buildings will make meeting the government¹s climate change targets very difficult indeed, especially given targets for house building.”
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