Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the contribution energy efficiency in properties can make to meeting the UK’s climate reduction targets.

Improving the energy efficiency of domestic properties, commercial buildings and public sector buildings is vital for meeting the UK’s carbon reduction targets.

Homes in the UK represent 15% of carbon emissions and meeting the net zero target is likely to require largely eliminating emissions from our housing stock. That is why we set out our aspiration in the Clean Growth Strategy that all homes should be EPC Band C by 2035. However reducing demand for energy will not be enough on its own, and by 2050 we will also likely need to fully decarbonise how we heat our homes.

For businesses and industry, we set an ambition in the Clean Growth Strategy to reduce their energy usage by improving energy efficiency by at least 20% by 2030. This will deliver 22MtCO2e towards the fifth Carbon Budget.

For public sector buildings, the Clean Growth Strategy states non-traded emissions (primarily from heating) should fall by around 50% by 2032, compared to 2017. We estimate that around half of this reduction will be met through energy efficiency and half from decarbonising heat supply.

As with homes, it is likely that greenhouse gas emissions from non-domestic buildings will need to be largely eliminated by 2050 to meet the net zero target.