Fashion is a fickle beast but now a whole city is going retro (well, not quite but it was too good a pun to waste). The long-awaited plan to retrofit all buildings owned and operated by the Greater London Authority (GLA) with energy-saving systems and technology is finally in motion with contracts awarded to companies which are going to slash the capital's emissions.
While much of the discussion about energy efficiency in buildings has focused on new houses, there are still millions of older buildings that lack proper insulation or top-notch heating systems. No matter how good those eco-towns are, if and when they're built they'll only represent a small proportion of the building stock in the UK. Fortunately, the GLA have a cunning plan.
The aim is to cut energy use in GLA buildings - including offices police and fire stations, and transport buildings - by 25 per cent, by using energy efficiency measures and refitting their properties with things like insulation and low carbon heating and cooling systems. A further bonus is that instead of doing one building at a time, a whole group of sites are being worked on together so that economies of scale make the most of the money being invested. So, finally, someone is making good on their promises about climate change and putting them into action.
This is part of Bill Clinton's grand C40 Cities plan which brought together mayors and officials from 18 metropolises around the world to draw up a climate change action plan. London is the first city to get this far in the process, with contracts awarded to two firms - Dalkia and Honeywell Building Solutions - to start the ball rolling. There are plenty of energy and financial savings to be made as London's building stock tends to be badly insulated with creaking and inefficient energy systems.
Okay, we're only talking about buildings owned by the GLA; there are all the other municipal and commercial ones as well and emissions from all of those combined account for one-third of London's CO2 emissions (bar aviation, that is). If all municipal and commercial buildings join in - although that remains a big 'if' - then the GLA calculate the initiative could save 3.6 million tonnes of CO2. Mayor Ken Livingstone is eager to see the borough councils buying into the plan along with the corporate sector and has set up various initiatives to oil the wheels for them. The financial mechanism can also be adapted to fit with the needs of other cities around the globe (other C40 cities, Paris and Houston, are also gearing up for similar projects) and scaled down to work for smaller local authorities.
By a strange coincidence, yesterday the European Commission announced the beginning of legal proceedings against the UK for not doing enough about the energy efficiency of buildings. So, Gordon Brown, are you paying attention?
