First Thoughts on Carbon Trust’s Draft IGT Incentives for Action — Non-Domestic Building Sector

May 2010

At a meeting in July 2010, The Carbon Trust asked the Edge to comment on a draft section of the Low Carbon Construction Innovation & Growth Team’s (LCC IGT) Incentives for Action report which it had co-authored.

The draft dealt with reducing carbon emissions in the non-domestic building sector. It had been informed by Carbon Trust’s Building the Future Today report.

In particular, the Edge was asked to address the challenges presented by the commercial building sector. The draft paper identified the ‘Landlord-Tenant Divide’ as a barrier to progressing a low carbon agenda in this sector. It cited that a ‘Circle of Inertia’ existed between the parties involved in funding, developing, constructing and finally occupying — with no one party minded to stimulate change.

It is hoped that this ‘First Thoughts’ document, which was prepared as a presentation, is sufficiently free-standing to be read without reproducing the documents it addresses.