A collective of real estate “declares” groups have written to prime minister Boris Johnson to offer up their expertise to rebuild the UK’s economy post Covid-19 while protecting both public health and the environment.
The collective, made up of UK Architects Declare, UK Structural Engineers Declare, UK Building Services Engineers Declare, UK Civil Engineers Declare, the Architects Climate Action Network and London Energy Transformation Initiative, believes it has the capacity to initiate a mass retrofit of energy-wasteful and unhealthy buildings; design all new buildings to stringent and measurable environmental standards that deliver a positive impact in terms of carbon, biodiversity, health and wellbeing; use only materials that benefit public health and the environment; and create new, long-term skilled jobs within a sustainable industry.
In their letter to Johnson they write: “To encourage delivery of those benefits, we urgently need your government to establish a supportive framework to enable immediate action.”
That framework should include a reduction of the 20% VAT on refurbishment to zero to encourage creative reuse of existing buildings; an emergency plan for decarbonising the country’s electricity supply; the reinstatement of and updating of the Zero Carbon Buildings Programme to require all new buildings to be built to a stringent and measurable standard that delivers positive impacts in terms of carbon, biodiversity, water and wellbeing; and the introduction of fiscal measures to discourage the use of harmful materials.
The collective is also calling for the government to establish:
- a mandated 80% carbon emission reductions by 2030 and absolute zero carbon by 2040, consistent with the emerging data on decarbonisation;
- a Future Generations Act which requires all parliamentary decisions to be scrutinised for their impact on young people and future generations;
- a reformed Companies Act with responsibility to all stakeholders and environmental life support systems;
- restoration of nature on a massive scale to address biodiversity loss, lock up carbon in plants and soils, supply building timber and save money by reducing flood damage; and
- a Law of Ecocide to more effectively protect environmental life support systems from destruction.
“Reform of the construction sector is only part of the wider action that is needed across the whole of our society in the coming decade to reduce the impact of climate and ecological breakdown,” writes the collective. “We are ready to help you accomplish this urgent transformation. Only then can we meet our collective responsibility to the future generations from whom we are now borrowing.”
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