Green building in London hindered by lack of performance goals

A new whitepaper has warned a lack of city-wide performance goals are stopping London from becoming a global leader in green building…

A new whitepaper from market strategists Solidiance has said London should follow strategies laid down by Paris if it wants to become a global leader in the green buildings sector.

The green building sector is growing every year, with the materials market expected to reach more than $234bn by 2019. While the capital achieves highly, there is much more it has to do if it is to keep pace with its global competitors.

The paper, ‘Top 10 cities for global green buildings’, revealed that London buildings currently emit 32m metric tonnes of CO2 annually. Comparatively, Paris only emits two million.

London came in third place for its performance in the green building sector, ranking behind Paris and Singapore. The whitepaper blamed a lack of city-wide performance goals, warning this was holding the capital back.

The report said: “Green buildings are the pillars to building more sustainable cities around the world; and building more sustainable cities around the world is integral to achieving sustainable development and preserving our world’s resourcing for present and future generations.

“Paris proves to us that old cities do not have to be trapped and weighed down by aging infrastructure; a strategic and methodical approach to retrofitting can dramatically improve efficiency.”

According to the data, the rate of green buildings is doubling every three years worldwide. London has some 1,729 green buildings, representing 68 per cent of the capital’s building stock. However, despite this the city is still struggling to improve efficiency.

Buildings are a major cause of pollution, accounting for 30 per cent of city-wide emissions and 40 per cent of global energy use. Green building certification was first started in the UK under the BREEAM system, which is used to measure the efficiency of buildings.

However, despite these commitments London remains a heavier polluter than Paris, and the capital also uses more energy at 101,228GWh compared to 15,050GWh.

One of the reasons Paris achieves so much in this area is due to the infrastructure in France. The whitepaper said the nation’s push to set quantifiable targets for energy efficiency and building performance also helped. It warned that London is still too focused on measuring goals such as the number of certifications issued.

Furthermore, the scrapping of programmes such as zero carbon homes may also prevent London from reaching its potential.