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Decarbonisation of the Built Environment

At the National Housing Federation Conference on 25 May 2022, the CBI welcomed the opportunity to engage with housing associations, contractors, and our members about the decarbonisation of the built environment.

30 Jun 2022, 2 min read

With the UK looking to lead the way on delivering net carbon zero homes, the urgency and scale of the challenge makes it critical for businesses to act now to meet growing demand.

Focus is needed on the workforce to deliver these changes; recruiting and training heat pump installers and energy assessors especially within the social housing sector.

We emphasised these aims against a broader backdrop of business priorities:

  1. Significant headwinds across the economy

There are headwinds being seen across the economy with:

  • increasing rates of inflation, and
  • material shortages and energy prices that are eating into profit margins.

These headwinds are eroding business confidence, meaning that government and business alike will find it challenging to meet the interim targets of reducing the carbon emissions of homes by 31% in 2025, and 50% by 2030.

  1. Labour and supply chain challenges

The built environment industry is experiencing acute labour and skill challenges that are biting across different parts of the ecosystem for delivering the decarbonisation of social housing:

  • statistics show that vacancies are nearly twice as high now with 45,000 vacancies in the social housing sector to 26,000 vacancies before the pandemic
  • There is a shortage of talent within the labour market, with 1000 heat pump installers that have been trained in comparison to 96,000 gas engineers, and
  • The 2017 and 2019 standards for energy efficiency have yet to be implemented due to a lack of heat pump installers.
  1. Delivering on net zero carbon targets

The CBI will support industry to deliver on their net carbon zero targets by:

  • working closely with government on how best to navigate through those labour challenges,
  • supporting members to take steps within their business to keep them ahead of the curve, and
  • feeding into government what steps it can take to unlock necessary investment

To attract and retain workers within this sector, we need to think more strategically and long-term to fill domestic labour shortages. The lack of expertise for roles requiring specialisms in sustainability and supply chains could be included as part of an updated shortage occupation list.

Speak to Dena (Senior Policy Adviser) if you are interested in getting involved in our work on decarbonisation of the built environment.