Summary
This Report,
'Building
for the Future: Sustainable Construction and Refurbishment on the Government
Estate' (HC 174), examines the extent to which construction of Government
buildings is meeting sustainability targets.
Each year Government
departments and agencies spend in the region of £3 billion on new building and
major refurbishments. The Government has set estate-wide sustainability
standards for the construction and refurbishment of its buildings.
The
Report examines evidence from the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on the reasons for
the limited progress made to date and the prospects for improvement, and finds
that much remains to be done across Government to meet these standards.
Conclusions and recommendations include:
- Mandatory environmental
assessments were carried out in only 35% of new builds and 18% of major
refurbishment projects in 2005-06, and only 9% of projects could be shown to
meet the required environmental standards
- Departmental uptake of
mandatory 'Quick Wins' - products pre-assessed to be more sustainable - was
limited
- Monitoring against estate-wide operational sustainability
targets does not set out clearly performance against 'Quick Wins' or
sustainability targets for individual projects
- Departments did not
carry out post-occupancy evaluations nor use whole life costing which is
necessary if the most sustainable option is to be chosen. The Committee
welcomes several initiatives that are being pursued to encourage the take-up of
sustainable options.
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