Government U-turn on Roll out of DECs for Private Sector Commercial Building.
After a recent report concluded that the Government should roll out Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for private sector commercial buildings after their original introduction for all public buildings, yet again the government has made a spectacular U-turn on it’s green commitment.
The Government’s Communities minister, Don Foster, confirmed last week that their plans had been abandoned in favour of the much weaker current measure of Energy Performance Certificates at Design Stage. This measures the design performance of a building at the planning stage and does not show, as DECs, how a building is performing in use.
The Jones Lang LaSalle and BBP (Better Buildings Partnership) Report “Are Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) a true indicator of energy efficiency?” uses data gathered from over 200 buildings over four years and emphasises the importance of measuring energy consumption.
Overwhelming disbelief has been shown throughout the industry, summed up by Andrew Warren, Director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy who said the decision was “perverse! I doubt the government can find anybody who supports this.”
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