Council conclusions

1. The Council endorsed further development of the sector’s roadmap focussing on Net Zero, nature and water during 2024. The Council also asked the Hub to work more closely with the Local Government community to achieve greater consistency in the journey to higher standards, and to join up with the Sustainable Markets Initiative Low Carbon Housing Task Force.
2. The Council welcomed the release of the Future Homes Standard consultation, highlighted key issues for the consultation and the implementation board and identified further areas for collaboration including: accelerating information sharing, communicating the benefits of, and how to use, heat pumps in newbuild homes, collating performance data across the sector and using collective buying power to support SMEs.
3. The Council recognised that as the ‘in use’ carbon emissions from new homes rapidly reduce through the 2021 changes in Part L and the Future Homes Standard 2025, embodied carbon will become responsible for the vast majority of emissions. The Council therefore endorsed the direction of travel in the Embodied and Whole Life Carbon implementation plan, including the move to consistent measurement, sharing of data and mainstream measurement, and the Hub will propose next steps in the July Council.
4. The Council recognised the substantial benefit the industry will deliver through Biodiversity Net Gain and asked the Hub to consider what further action can be taken to support SMEs and local authorities with the introduction of BNG including through software tools.
5. The Council recognised the potential of new homes to help reverse the decline in certain red list species and endorsed an industry led scheme to rapidly introduce nature promotion measures on new developments focussing initially on nest boxes for swifts and hedgehog highways.
6. The Council recognised that good communications is vital to sustained progress on the sustainability agenda and bringing people with us, and is an area for collaboration. The Hub will consider the potential for tracking and reporting on the total performance of the sector.
7. The Council asked the Hub to consider what resources would be needed to help support development of solutions to Nutrient Neutrality.

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