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Regulatory framework
The construction of new and proposed UK buildings has principally been
controlled through a system of building regulations since the great fire of
London in 1666. Poor health conditions of an increasing population during the
industrial revolution led to the Public Health Act 1875, which was significantly
revised in 1936 and 1961. The first set of national building standards appeared
as The Building Regulations 1965 (these have now been superseded by The
Building Regulations 2000 (as amended) under The Building Act 1984). The
regulations were developed
historically to legislate for safer and healthier
buildings. The specific provisions for the conservation of fuel and power did not
appear until 1979 (Powell-Smith and Billington, 1995), as the environmental
impacts of energy use became more apparent.
Global carbon emissions from energy generation by fossil fuel burning are rising
(Figure 4) and the resultant climate change is believed to be near, or past, a
tipping point, where effects, such as sea level rise and dangerously increased
global average temperatures, are irreversible (Lindsay and Zhang, 2005;
Hansen, 2005; and Lovelock, 2006), as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise
(Figure 5). This is driving and accelerating the regulatory control of building
energy use at local, national, European and global levels.
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