UK 2016 housing commitment

Members of the homebuilding industry, councils, WWF and homeless organisations have given their support to the Government’s housing agenda by signing up to Communities and Local Government’s 2016 Commitment, joining with it in an ambition to build 240,000 new zero carbon homes a year by 2016.

The parties have agreed:
 * that by 2016, all new homes will be build to zero carbon standards;
 * that over the interim period, new homes will be built to increasingly higher environmental standards
 * to work closely together to resolve obstacles to reaching these targets.

According to Communities and Local Government: "'Zero carbon’ means no net carbon emissions from all energy uses in the home including appliances - so the amount of energy taken from the national grid is less than or equal to the amount put back through low or zero carbon technologies."