Built Environment

Need to be retrofitted with energy efficiency, renewable energy and water-harvesting technologies. Approaches must tackle fuel poverty as a priority. Ways to achieve this could be:

Financial measures

• Grants, subsidies and low-interest loans made available to everybody from central and local government(paid for through council tax increase)
• Grants for businesses to train their staff in how to install and maintain these technologies
• Remove VAT on these technologies

Legislative measures

• Strengthen the building regulations for refurbishment projects
• Put greater requirements on landlords to improve the efficiency of their properties
• Fewer restrictions for listed properties and clearer guidance
• Require all supermarkets to cover their roofs with solar PV

New approaches

• The Dutch-model of whole-house retrofit called Energiesprong already being trialled in Devon
• Empower community energy organisations and the Devon Energy Collective to take a lead on working with their local community
• Local government to take a lead in ensuring zero-carbon through their building refurbishments, including solar panels on all public buildings

• Discourage second homes and holiday homes by increasing taxes
• Ensure the locations that new buildings are constructed are future-proofed for future climate change to avoid needing to abandon settlements due to increased flooding and sea-level rise and construct replacement buildings elsewhere

Need to be designed to be net-zero carbon(or negative carbon)over their entire lifecycle, including their embodied carbon.

Through the planning system and/or building regulations:

• Require the use of low carbon building materials
• Greater protection for existing trees and require more to be planted in each development
• Require district heating in new schemes and major redevelopment
• Require green roofs
• Require rainwater harvesting

New approaches

• Local government to commit to all new buildings being net-zero carbon over their entire lifecycle
• Promote the southwest as the centre of expertise and demonstration of low-carbon buildings
• Devolve planning powers to local authorities to make these aspirations easier to achieve
• Upskill local authority planning teams to be able to critique developers’ low-carbon claims

• Raise awareness of the benefits of low carbon buildings so that clients specify low-carbon designs when engaging architects and carry the low-carbon ambition through to implementation
• Make fuels prohibitively expensive to reduce private transport
• Switch computers off overnight in businesses
• Incentivise staff in organisations to save energy by offering them a percentage of the savings
• Encourage people to live close to where they work
• Provide sleep pods at businesses to enable staff to sleep at work rather than travelling home
• Force shops to close when heating or cooling is in operation
• Develop a campaign to engage schools directly in the climate emergency, including the curriculum
• Support community organisations with the skills they need to lead the climate emergency locally

• Instead of out of town shopping centres and large executive homes we need affordable housing and community food growing
• Ban development below 10m ordnance datumin coastal areas to avoid the need for carbon-intensive coastal defences over the period to 2300
• Instead of the current proposals for Teignmouth/Dawlish railway we need a different, lower carbon solution
• Implement a fast-track planning procedure for green energy schemes
• Identify spaces for trees in urban areas
• Switch off street lights
• Immediate halt to the conversion of front gardens to parking spaces