Why Eco?
Why not ECO?
We are living in very interesting, ecology oriented times. In the last 150 years most modern inventions were made, the greatest changes took place, extremely fast and shaping our lifes. Now we entered eco-friendly approach to our living, work, economy, manufacturing, food and housing. Being eco-friendly became trendy, food became ‘organic‘ and our homes became ‘self-sustainable‘.
This is new Era where little space has been left for non eco-friendly solutions. Especially, in the construction business. A national regulations (Code For Sustainable Homes now) introduced in April 2007 and withdraw in 2015, put under pressure the build of new eco-friendly houses to be self-sustainable and with no carbon foot print. Following its withdrawal, the UK government integrated key sustainability elements into streamlined national technical standards and updated Building Regulations (such as water efficiency and space standards), with upcoming updates like the Future Homes Standard carrying forward low-carbon and energy-efficiency goals
Is it good or bad news? I think that we deserve cleaner eco-living and fresh air but what price we are prepared to pay for this? New builds with very high levels of compliance with new eco-friendly standards are not going to be cheap. However, it is inevitable that like with computers all those fancy energy saving appliances whenever mass-marketed their prices will drop. Just in the UK alone there are plans to build thousands of new eco-friendly houses with most of them being specified as sustainable and low-carbon. What this means is they must comply with Level 4 minimum of national regulations by 2013 and from 2016 all new house builds will HAVE TO comply with Level 6 – no carbon emission and fully self-sustainable! It is not easy to achieve – very high cost and very complex. Also, many doubt it will never happen.
The UK government is planning for small, eco-friendly green towns between 5-20 000 homes (this is good) with up-to 50% of affordable housing (daunting)! The whole prospect can be accessed here. This prospect is dated at July 2007 and bearing in mind that without mass-production of all required devices such as: (water filters, solar panels, wind turbines, biomass boilers and so on) and with much lower prices to make houses zero carbon emitting is difficult to see this (affordable) happening. However, such massive number in new eco-friendly houses provisions could induce price drop and great increase in production. One may think of even exponential growth in manufacturing of renewable energy sources, eco-building materials, water recycling and other appliances. So, there is some hope for real eco-living :).
This also, imply that we may not need power suppliers any more. Is it good news? Think again, are you working for energy supplier? I don’t but … So, may be, dear reader, you should start thinking about the change. Your own business? Or find a work for renewable energy manufacturer? World is changing fast and we have to adapt fast as well as to keep with the pace.
On 16 July 2009, the government announced “go-ahead for four eco-friendly (BBC), green towns (Architect’s Journal)“.
The eco-living became serious driver in every aspect of our lives. The questions is what are you going to do with that? Will you follow? Personally, I believe that taking eco-friendly approach is the best way to recover from all over the World destruction to the environment.
But all of this end-up in typical political mess. The central government policy backing the eco-towns fundamentally collapsed within a few years, leading each of the four locations down vastly different paths.
In 2010, the incoming Coalition Government heavily scaled back and later scrapped the top-down eco-towns planning policy. Ministers labelled the initiative a “total shambles,” citing heavy local opposition to building on greenfield spaces, developers pulling out due to financial viability, and legal challenges. By 2011, national funding was cut, and the government announced that only one of the original locations would actually be held to the strict, original “true zero-carbon” standards.
Such a shame.