Raising standards to protect homeowners
NHBC cross-party trip to Sweden
In July 2007, The Government announced that all new homes must be zero-carbon by 2016. Since then, NHBC has been investing to support the delivery of zero-carbon homes in the UK.
In September 2009, NHBC took an all-party group of MPs to Sweden. The trip included a tour of housing developments in Hammarby Sjostad and Malmo, two areas of Stockholm pioneering innovative ways to build sustainable homes.
In this special podcast, NHBC Chief Executive Imtiaz Farookhi details the methods used for sustainable housing developments in Sweden. He explains how these developments have helped make huge cuts in the residents' carbon footprint and how this could be used as a model in the UK's zero carbon home target whilst protecting consumers at the same time.
Hammarby Sjostad
Hammarby Sjöstad is Stockholm's extension to the south of its city centre and was originally proposed as an environmental Olympic village for Sweden's 2004 failed bid. Because the brownfield site was riddled with dangerous pollution and covered an area roughly the size of the Greenwich peninsula, it offers obvious parallels with the UK's Greenwich Millennium Village, especially as both schemes started on site in 1998 and had their first residents in 2000. But there is a chasm to what has been achieved since. First, Hammarby is now the undisputed international model for low-carbon living, containing not only the world's most integrated waste and water recycling strategy but thousands of homes powered by a renewable energy infrastructure. This new extension has also been designed to echo the form and layout of historic Stockholm and there is an easy familiarity to the place, not least because the low carbon benefit comes from new homes being plugged into an energy infrastructure rather than achieved through the individual home. This also makes the homes simple, cheaper and quicker to build and during the winter of 2008/09, Hammarby completed the 7000th of its planned 11,000 homes, a couple of weeks after the GMV celebrated its 1000th. Stockholm City's departmental heads are elected officials, and we met the team behind its integrated environment, transportation and planning department (which is well financed because the first 28% of income tax goes to municipal authorities).
Passive House Project in Malmo City
The 'passive house' in Malmö has been calculated to meet the 65 kilowatt per hour threshold. This calculates to 290 kilos (640 lbs) carbon dioxide per apartment each year, 65% lower than the average apartment unit in Sweden (485 kilos, or 1,069 lbs), and 265% lower than the average American residential usage (2,320 lbs) . More importantly, the technology is such that it can be transferred to other countries and areas. The key components to the project are thicker walls with higher insulation values, windows with low U-values, and a central heating system powered by a heat exchange system with a 90% recovery rate (ventilation exhaust and ventilation inflow system) located on the roof. To ensure that tenants are conscious of their energy usage, electrical and hot water usage is measured in each unit.