Future Homes Standard

The Future Homes Standard will require new build homes to be future-proofed with low carbon heating and world-leading levels of energy efficiency; it will be introduced by 2025.

This Department for Housing, Communities & Local Government consultation sets out plans for the Future Homes Standard, including proposed options to increase the energy performance and energy efficiency requirements for new homes in 2020.

This is the first stage of a two-part consultation about proposed changes to the Building Regulations. It also covers the wider impacts of Part L for new homes, including changes to Part F (ventilation), its associated Approved Document guidance, airtightness and improving as-built performance of the constructed home.

Embodied Emissions

The Future Homes Standard consultation focuses entirely on the operational emissions of buildings; however, the embodied carbon of a new build home is estimated at around 50 tCO2. As operational carbon emissions decrease, embodied emissions account for an increasingly larger proportion of the lifetime emissions of the home. If this cannot be included now, it should be taken into account for future specifications of the carbon metric design (e.g. 2025).