Both the Scottish and the UK Governments have produced regulations that are intended to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings in the UK, and so reduce carbon emissions, helping towards our national emissions reduction targets. But the respective administrations have approached the issue in very different ways.
The approach in England and Wales is to prohibit letting of a sub-standard building, until improvement works have been carried out to raise the energy performance indicator to at least the minimum energy efficiency level of “E”.
In contrast, there will be no “ban” in Scotland on letting commercial buildings with poor energy efficiency. Instead, Scotland has chosen to encourage owners to carry out improvements, or improve efficiency through monitoring emissions from a building.
Our latest briefing paper provides an overview of the regulations in each location and highlights the differences between the two.
