A real Green New Deal for Scotland

Stephen Richard — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 08:48:16 +0000

Primary Author or Creator

Common Weal

Stephen Richard Tue, 09/14/2021 - 09:48

Alternative Published Date

2020

Category

Climate change

Type of Resource

Video

Fast Facts

The world is under threat from a series of approaching environmental crises and Scotland is a country which still has enduring social failures like poverty and inequality. Many people are pessimistic. But both can be tackled if we take them head-on and plan for them – which is what Common Weal did with The Common Home Plan, the world’s first comprehensive Green New Deal. It is a reason for optimism and hope. It is a costed proposal for how to avert the environmental crises, transform Scotland and get the nation ready for the era to come. You can find out much more and get copies of the books here.

Our Common Home. video 1:38 minutes

More details

The following is a very quick summary of some of the key action points from the plan:

Buildings: All new construction must be energy-neutral and have at least 60-year lifespan | Renovate rather than demolish | Set up National Housing Company and insulate all existing homes to 90 per cent efficiency | Make all construction materials organic or recycled | Make all public buildings ‘energy positive’ | Require businesses to achieve high heating efficiency but provide subsidies for small businesses | All electrical goods must have AAA efficiency rating
Heating:Set up an Energy Development Agency to plan the shift to renewable heating | Set up a National Energy Company to install a national District Heating System with renewable heat generation | Install renewable heating in off-gas-grid houses | Invest in training the workforce | Establish a Heat Supply Act to make this happen
Electricity: The Energy Development Agency plans the move to a zero- carbon electricity | Set up a National Energy Company to build the generation and energy storage | Build electrolysis plants to generate hydrogen for energy storage | Nationalise and upgrade the National Grid with local storage and ‘smart grid’ technologies | Gradually take existing generation capacity into public ownership | Use an Industrial Strategy to develop domestic supply chains for all of this | End the extraction of oil and gas in Scotland
Transport: Create a National Transport Company to plan the transition to carbon-free travel | Use better planning to reduce the need for car journeys | Begin installing charging and refueling infrastructure for zero-carbon vehicles | Replace or retrofit existing public transport to be zero-carbon | Commission more hydrogen ferries | Develop an air transport strategy
Food: Set up a National Food Agency to plan a transition to a regenerative food system | Move to an agro ecological system for Scotland’s food production | Implement a strategy to greatly reduce food waste | Invest in new forms of food growing like vertical farming | Shorten supply chains by supporting new food processing businesses in Scotland | Strengthen regulation of the food industry and redesign farming subsidy regimes to encourage agroecology | Use pricing mechanisms to embed environmental externalities in the cost of food | Pursue import substitution to reduce the environmental impact of unnecessary imports | Institute a legal Right to Food to ensure that changes to the food system do not harm the access to healthy nutrition of anyone in Scotland | Consider implementing a Universal Basic Income
Land: Set up a National Land Agency to oversee the management of Scotland’s land | It should then deliver a target of 50 per cent reforesting | Introduce a process of National Land Planning to zone rural land for specific purposes | Strengthened regulation and reporting on land management | Train roughly 20,000 additional land managers | Take direct action to diversify land ownership in Scotland | Develop a rural industrial strategy | Allocate fishing quotas on the basis of environmental performance | Implement Scotland’s water shortage plan
Resources: Set up a National Resources Agency to oversee the move to zero waste | Develop a circular economy | Set a hierarchy for resource use: deconsumerise → dematerialise → simplify → share → reuse → remanufacture → compost → and only then recycle | Create a national waste collection and reprocessing service | Use ‘Producer Responsibility’ to make manufacturers responsible for the full lifecycle of the goods they produce | Use ‘externality taxes’ to ensure the price of goods reflects their true lifecycle costs | Invest in a wide range of initiatives like National Deposit Return schemes, container standardisation and tool libraries to optimise resource use | Ban single-use plastic | Regulate to discourage and then end the use of most single-use materials | Set up a National Consumer Agency to monitor all products, require them to be manufactured along circular economy lines and ban particularly harmful materials altogether

Resource Address (URL)

https://commonweal.scot/big-ideas/a-real-green-new-deal-for-scotland/

Keywords

Language English

Energy Performance Certificates: An Alternative Approach

Stephen Richard — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 11:06:30 +0000

Energy Performance Certificates: An Alternative Approach

Primary Author or Creator

Keith Baker

Stephen Richard Wed, 09/01/2021 - 12:06

Additional Author(s) / Creators

Ron Mould, Common Weal

Date Published

Mon, 12/17/2018 - 12:00

Category

Energy

Type of Resource

Policy Paper

Fast Facts

― The aims of the European Union’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which requires EPCs to be produced for all new buildings and those being sold or rented out, are fundamentally sound and should serve to drive improvements in energy performance. However, in Scotland and the UK, the method by which EPCs are produced are fundamentally flawed. In particular, this is due to the reliance on using modelled energy consumption data rather than actual (measured) data.

― In light of the increasing reliance on using EPC ratings as a key driver for Scottish Government policies on energy efficiency and fuel poverty, including proposals to mandate home and building owners to upgrade their properties to achieve higher ratings, there is an urgent need to understand the highly significant uncertainties around both the ratings and the appropriateness of the improvements recommended by EPC assessments. Then if the Scottish Government seeks to persist in using EPCs as a policy driver it should develop an alternative method for producing them which both more accurately reflects actual energy consumption and includes a more realistic and appropriate list of recommended improvements. Doing so is entirely within its devolved powers, and such an alternative approach would be more aligned to the EPBD’s guidance for producing EPCs.

― This policy paper sets out such an alternative approach, and how it would achieve greater alignment with the EPBD. The approach is based on the fundamental principle of maximising the use of real data in order to provide buyers and tenants with accurate, robust, relevant, and useful information. The approach is also designed to maximise the use of data already being collected by the Scottish Government and public bodies in order to be cost effective. We present this approach as an answer to the frequently asked question of ‘if not EPCs, then what?’, and would welcome comments from other experts and stakeholders as to how it could be refined further.

More details

Energy Performance Certificates as they stand are not a valid driver for policy. What should replace them? Through a deconstruction of the legislation and the modelling that underpins EPCs we have shown both the limitations and implications of using EPCs in their current form as a policy driver, and 12 Common Weal Energy Performance Certificates: An alternative approach have presented an alternative approach which meets all the necessary legislative requirements and which can be implemented directly under currently devolved powers. Although this work is focussed on domestic EPCs we have set out how it can be applied directly to non-domestic EPCs through harmonisation with the future development of the Scottish Sustainability Label.

This alternative approach not only directly addresses the requirements of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, it is a better way of implementing those requirements, and serves to counter the potential for damage to social welfare under non-ideal circumstances. Furthermore, the costs of adopting the alternative approach, even without offsetting against the wider economic savings, are far from the scale of the only two viable alternatives, whilst also reducing the need for and costs of modelling.

We present this alternative approach for further discussion and as a step towards the formalisation and implementation of a more accurate, robust, realistic, appropriate and workable method for producing EPCs, and look forward to further engagement with the Scottish Government, stakeholders and experts to resolve the problems caused by the current approach.

Resource Address (URL)

https://commonweal.scot/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/EPC.pdf

Keywords

Energy Performance Certificates

Domestic heating

Energy efficiency

Energy efficient buildings

Language English