Glass and Energy Conservation
Clear Benefits sets out to address a major anomaly in the UK's approach to cutting CO2 emissions and to propose a solution.
Buildings, and in particular homes, are much bigger polluters than cars. In fact CO2 emissions caused by homes are double that of cars. But the effort to change the way in which we design and run buildings falls well short of what is needed to make a real impact on the problem.
The Government is committed to improving our national energy efficiency performance and has set an ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2010. But the UK consistently looks right through one of the key answers to meeting our targets: windows.
Low emissivity glass (low E), increasingly known as low energy glass, could play a major role in emissions reductions.
Replacing all single glazed windows in the UK with low emissivity double glazing represents a potential saving of:
- £638 million a year
- 9 million tonnes of CO2 a year
- enough energy to heat every house in six cities the size of Birmingham, year in, year out
This is why Clear Benefits calls on the Government to:
- Change Building Regulations to make low E mandatory in new buildings
- Extend Building Regulations to include existing buildings when modernised
- Tax energy saving materials at the same rate as energy
- Set an example by committing to replace all single glazed windows in all central government buildings with low E double glazing by 2010
- Promote low E glass as part of a national Energy Efficiency Plan
Clearly, it is in Pilkington's interests to encourage sales of low E glass. To back our commitment to energy efficiency in buildings however, we have established the Pilkington Energy Efficiency Trust (PEET). The trust will provide financial support to research or demonstration projects, which further the understanding of energy efficiency in buildings.