The critical role of buildings in achieving Net Zero

On 27 June 2019, the UK government set a legally binding target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions from across the UK economy by 2050. According to the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC), heating homes and buildings accounts for more than 30% of the UK’s carbon emissions. Most of this can be attributed to heating domestic properties.

With only 5% of homes having low carbon heating, such as electric heat pumps, and biomass boilers, and an aging housing stock with poor energy efficiency, there are very significant challenges ahead to meet the 2050 target. The scale of the task is shown by the switchover to central heating in the 1970s – which took 35 years to increase from 30% to 95% of homes.