Looking For Sustainable To Look Good
I‘m really looking forward to the Ecobuild exhibition at Earls Court this week. Not just because it’s become a great place to see and be seen in terms of the UK building materials industry, but also because of all the incredible developments in sustainable products and sustainable product design that there have been since the last year.
Sustainability is here to stay
It’s a fact of our lives now and will become an increasingly important part of our future if we are, in fact, to have a future at all.
Like all emerging market sectors, sustainability has had the committed early adopters and the bandwagon-jumpers and its share of in-it-for-money entrepreneurs. But it’s getting more and more mainstream. The general public are starting, slowly, to want to be more sustainable. There is more acceptance generally of sustainability issues as people start to understand that it’s not just about eco-warriors and Grand Designs. I was surprised to see last year how mainstream Ecobuild seemed. I suspect it will be even more so this week.
And it’s no wonder since the Code for Sustainable Homes kicks in this year which means that all new housing built will have to meet certain criteria on sustainability, low carbon and general environmental-friendliness. So there should be plenty at Ecobuild to tempt developers needing to satisfy the various requirements of meeting the Code, making some money out of the build process and building properties which people actually want to purchase.
Retro Fitted Homes Need Consideration
However, new houses are only a very small part of the whole housing picture.
We won’t get anywhere with tackling housing-related energy and climate issues without thinking about how existing properties can be retro-fitted and made more sustainable.
And for that to happen, people have really got to want to buy such products.
If you’re buying a new house this year, chances are you won’t be choosing it because it’s a more sustainable prospect than another house. You’re likely to be purchasing it because that’s where you want to live.
Committed
If you’re making changes to your existing home to make it more sustainable you either need to be really committed to the fact that it will help your energy bills or the planet – preferably both – or it needs to be something that you really, really like. Which is where good design comes in.
We’re still, by and large, obsessed with houses in this country – ours, our neighbours’ and the ones we watch on the property TV shows. We want ours to look better, cost less and be worth more than other people’s. We are also, slowly, starting to want them to have less impact on the environment than others’.
It’s still a long haul, but if we can have sustainable products, that work, are well designed, look good, and that people want to purchase then we might get there. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the situation where we all, to paraphrase William Morris “have nothing about us which we do not know to be sustainable, or believe to be beautiful”? Let’s see what Ecobuild’s exhibitors can do.
Fiona Russell-Horne is editor of Builders Merchant Journal the leading news-led website for the UK building materials industry. You can also join Fiona on Twitter here (@FeeHorne)
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