showhouse June 2015 |49

SUSTAINABILITY

The sustainable credentials of new homes have not, historically,always been clear to the consumer, but, says ROGER HUNT, new performance labelling and quality marks could be the answer

Made tomeasure

Wienerberger e4 brick house

Peter White/BRE

What does the average homebuyer understand bysustainability? How do they feel about the ideas of green and eco practices in connection to theirhomes? How do they see these concepts playinginto architectural design? These are just some ofthe questions addressed in research undertaken byKey, a property marketing company, in partnershipwith the Good Homes Alliance.The research, published in the report ‘What issustainability? Who does it matter to? ...and why?’,reveals that, when asked what it means to be green,eco or sustainable, ‘eco’ was the word peoplespontaneously used in relation to homes and houses.Many viewed this term positively, connecting it withcost saving. Sustainability was a concept that themembers of the focus groups were less familiar with. Participants indicated that there is a lack ofinformation about sustainable materials and practicesin relation to homebuilding. They were not aware of general industry standards or policies. There is no mark like the red tractor used on British-sourcedfood by which locally sourced building materials canbe identified. These findings are worth noting, coming as they doin the wake of the housing standards review and thesubsequent new set of national technical standardsaimed at, among other things, streamlining theplanning system and protecting the environment. Atthe same time, the Code for Sustainable Homes is nomore, although it will clearly take some years to workout of the system.Andy Von Bradsky, chairman of PRP architects and a member of the Housing Standards ReviewChallenge Panel, believes the Code did not reallyconnect with consumers. “It was intended to be aconsumer-friendly standard but it never became so.The challenge for the industry now is to come up with something that is consumer-friendly and doesconnect with the consumer.” Along with others, Von Bradsky thinks some form oflabelling, which provides information being producedby the industry in a consistent format, is the right wayto go. “Consumers are primarily concerned with

50| June 2015 showhouse

SUSTAINABILITY

ABOVE Wienerberger e4 brick house under construction on the BRE Innovation Park. Theinner leaf is Porotherm blockwork with an outer brick leaf. The roof has an integrated PV array

ABOVE RIGHT Wienerberger e4 brick house: Cavity insulation between the inner leaf ofPorotherm blockwork and outer leaf of brick

THIS PIC Hill zero carbon concept home

Peter White/BRE

Peter White/BRE

showhouse June 2015 |51

issues such as the running cost of their home, howmuch water they might consume, what the savingsmight be and, for those who are well informed, theirenvironmental footprint.” The case for labelling has been explored by theHousing Forum, and its partners BLP Insurance andHTA Design, through a Home Performance Labellingpilot that examines how to improve the informationavailable to consumers about the performance oftheir home.Members of the Housing Forum and theircollaborators were invited to submit designs for singledwellings, houses or apartments, of any size, usingbuilding information modelling (BIM) software. Alldwellings were compared against the same metricsand then benchmarked. The data was presented inthe format of a comparison website, a traffic lightsystem revealing performance in relation to definedstandards with ‘hover over’ explainers to convey themeans of calculation and parameters of compliance. “For once we’ve got a very strong link between theas-built quality and the expectation of performance,”explains Shelagh Grant, chief executive of theHousing Forum. “It enables people to make choicesthat are based realistically on the long-term cost ofoccupation. The good thing about it is that it’s limitedto a relatively small number of characteristics so itdoesn’t overload people’s analysis. People will stillmake choices based on location, price and schoolingand that kind of thing, but it will also enable decisionsto do with daylight, energy costs and performancewith regard to space standards; all of that has aknock-on effect in terms of sustainability.”Home performance labelling is similar to thelabelling system used with fridges and otherappliances in that homes are compared on a like-for-like basis. Rory Bergin, partner, sustainablefutures at HTA, believes that, from a sustainabilityperspective, this will be a natural ‘push’ in the rightdirection. “When fridges, freezers and TVs were firstlabelled A, B and C, the Bs and Cs pretty quickly fell off and we now have A, A+ and A++. That’sbecause most consumers, when given a choice and

providing there isn’t a wildly different cost differential,will go for the one with the higher ratings in whatevermetric the rating is so, with housing, we think it willexercise a slow but inexorable push for better qualityin all dimensions.” For Peter Mayer, research and developmentmanager, BLP Insurance, an important aspect of theHome Performance Labelling pilot is that it addressesmuch of the information that is currently missing forhomebuyers, such as the volume of the property andstorage space. “Perhaps more importantly it will alsooutline the potential maintenance and operationalcosts relating to the property. In the future the criteriaconsidered could include additional sustainabilityfactors such as air quality and noise levels associatedwith the location.”Bergin believes that an important aspect of labellingis that it is more to do with comparison than data sopeople are pushed in the direction that is best forthem. “If people are looking for more space for theirmoney they can see which home gives them morespace for their money; if they’re looking for somethingthat’s cheaper to run, and they don’t care so muchabout the space, they can choose that too. We’rebeing neutral about the data itself.”Another aid for buyers comes in the form of theBRE’s new Home Quality Mark, which it claims will“transform the way consumers choose the homesthey buy and rent” and allow housebuilders todifferentiate themselves by providing independentbenchmarking of new homes. There are signs are that consumers have an appetite for this. A survey of 500 users of web comparison portalmoneysupermarket.com found that 97% ofrespondents would welcome a quality mark forhousing. Housebuilders have also supported itsintroduction, with over 30 signed up to pilot it. Using a simple star rating the mark will give ahouseholder clear indications of the home’s overallrunning costs, how it will protect their health andwellbeing, its resilience to flooding and overheatingand its environmental footprint. According to the BRE,it is designed to demonstrate how digitally connected

▲

LEFT Wienerberger e4 brick house:Floor insulation being installed

BOTTOM Wienerberger e4 brickhouse: Between the upper windowsare brick relief panels

MIDDLE ‘What is sustainability?Who does it matter to? ...and why?’report cover

BELOW Wienerberger e4 brickhouse: Between the upper windowsare brick relief panels

SUSTAINABILITY

Peter White/BRE

Peter White/BRE

Peter White/BRE

development, with the winning family moving into thehome at the start of 2015.“The family will provide us with vital information on how people interact and use this technology onan everyday basis and this will help us to hone theproperties we’re building,” says Rob Hall, deputymanaging director at Hill. “Our recent consumersurvey found 52% of those questioned would bemore likely to buy a home if it incorporated green or sustainable features but, at the same time, 45% indicated this would make no difference totheir decision.“The key to achieving consumer buy-in is to make things as easy and hassle-free as possible.According to our survey, the top three sustainablefeatures consumers would like in their home are tripleglazing, enhanced insulation and solar panels; thesetechnologies are all passive for the homeowner. Bycreating high-quality, sustainable, family-friendlyhomes, comfort and ease of use will eventuallybecome synonymous with sustainability and, whenthis happens, we expect an environmentally friendlyhome to increasingly be a ‘must have’ rather than a‘nice to have’.”

FURTHER READINGThe ‘What is sustainability? Who does it matter to?...and why?’ report may be downloaded free:www.marketingiskey.co.uk/sustainability/

CONTACTSBLP Insurance www.blpinsurance.com Good Homes Alliance www.goodhomes.org.uk Home Performance Labellingwww.homeperformancelabelling.co.uk Home Quality Mark www.homequalitymark.com Housing Forum www.housingforum.org.ukHTAwww.hta.co.uk PRPwww.prparchitects.co.uk Wienerbergerwww.wienerberger.co.uk

a home is to support people over their lifetime and willhelp consumers understand the long-term quality andperformance of a new build home. One of the benefits of the Home Quality Mark is that it will enable developers to differentiate theirproduct, explains Gwyn Roberts, Home Quality Markteam leader. “It’s changing the language that wecommunicate to householders to move it away from avery technical language, that’s often spoken within theindustry, to something that people can understand.”The first house to pilot the new standard is theWienerberger e4 brick house, which has beendesigned in conjunction with Arup and has beenconstructed on the BRE Innovation Park atWatford. The three-bedroom detached homefocuses on the four ‘pillars’ of Wienerberger’s globale4 concept: energy, economy, environment andemotion. It utilises a fabric-first approach using aclay building envelope to deliver a house withreduced energy needs.Understanding what those living in new homes want is vital. Hill launched a competition to findCambridge’s ‘family of the future’ to live in a zerocarbon concept home for a year at its Virido

52| June 2015 showhouse

Read Roger Hunt’s blog www.huntwriter.com and follow him on Twitter @huntwriter

sh

ABOVE Wienerberger e4brick house

ABOVE RIGHTWienerberger e4 brickhouse: Bricklaying

BELOW Lorna and DaveRayner with their childrenHarry and Ebony who willlive in the Hill zero carbonconcept home for a year

SUSTAINABILITY

Peter White/BRE

Peter White/BRE