Carrots and sticks – improving energy efficiency of non-domestic buildings

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 is no “ban” in Scotland on letting commercial buildings with poor energy efficiency. Instead, Scotland chose to encourage owners to carry out improvements or improve efficiency through monitoring emissions from a building. For residential properties, this may be about to change.

Our latest briefing paper below provides an overview of the regulations in each location and highlights the differences between the two.