How do we decarbonise our historic buildings?

Much of the UK’s rich and complex history is embodied by the many listed buildings we live, work and play in. Our built heritage is often discounted as a niche sector, but over six million homes and a third of all commercial properties across the country were built before 1919 – and many are protected by statutory listings and conservation area designations.

Fundamentally, this is a position to be proud of, but with this rich heritage and associated controls comes a huge challenge: how do we help this significant slice of our built environment become part of the fight against global warming and increase its resilience to protect it for the future?

Having already retrofitted over 1m sq ft of our historic London estate, we know that sensitively adapting historic buildings is very challenging – but it doesn’t have to be.

Obstacles to retrofitting

This challenge is largely the result of a lack of certainty and clarity within current policy and practice about what can and should be allowed. Without this, there is little basis for consistent decision-making by anyone involved. The recent challenges to the M&S Oxford Street application, partly on the basis of heritage loss despite the building itself not being listed, demonstrates how the same policy can be applied differently by different bodies.

Heritage buildings also need sympathetic and skilled renovation to protect them for the long term. Our analysis points to the need for an additional 105,000 full-time workers to retrofit historic buildings each year through to 2050 – this is on top of the 100,000 already working in professions associated with the retrofit of historic properties.

Cost is also an important factor. Policy ambiguity and a constrained supply chain affect costs, but some measures, such as funding for the social housing sector and changes to VAT, are a crucial part of incentivising energy improvements across the whole built environment.

A decisive reformulation of our national approach to retrofitting requires a larger skilled workforce, financing support, more focused guidance, reform of the EPC framework and an increase in local authority capability and capacity. But the trigger for making much of this happen lies in the policy framework and political leadership.

Enshrining a retrofit strategy in law

So, let’s enshrine in law a national retrofit strategy that will take a holistic approach to skills, training, funding and advice for property owners. Only by overcoming these obstacles can we encourage the sensitive retrofit necessary to decarbonise our historic built environment.

At its core, we need clear, transparent and universal retrofitting standards. Property owners and investors need certainty before spending money. Reducing the time, cost and risk involved in securing consent is critical to give landlords the confidence to start the necessary journey of updating their properties.

Financial incentives that mobilise action at scale are also important. There are clear international precedents that we could emulate such as the US Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives programme, which offers a 20% tax credit to encourage private sector investment in the refurbishment of historic buildings. As it stands, the UK tax system actively encourages demolition ahead of refurbishment through a higher VAT rate.

Closer to home, Westminster City Council offer reduced pre-application fees for homeowners where an application is related to energy efficiency, therefore removing an upfront barrier to retrofit, something which could be replicated by others.

When it comes to skills, we need to reform the Apprenticeship Levy to be more flexible and allow for unspent funds to be channelled into retrofit training. Equally important is the need for skills development to take place at a local level – tailored to the community’s needs and priorities.

The ambiguity and inconsistency of policy and guidance regarding energy efficiency in historic buildings has left a substantial amount of England’s existing building stock vulnerable to the impending climate crisis.

Nobody should pretend that tackling the climate emergency or protecting our heritage comes for free. At the same time, it is important that we have a system that does not place an unmanageable financial or administrative burden on private building owners, social landlords and others.

We don’t have to look far for solutions. A huge number of pragmatic, workable solutions have been identified by the private sector, Historic England and more recently, Chris Skidmore’s Net Zero Review and Mission Zero work.

Done right, we stand to gain more than reduced emissions. Economically, we could create as many as 290,000 jobs and generate £35bn of annual output. For property owners and occupiers, energy bills would be better controlled. And culturally, our unique architectural heritage would be preserved. Worth it? Yes.