Fewer than forty homes reach level 6 of the code for sustainable homes

According to numbers released by the UK Department for Communities and Local Government just 31 homes have reached the highest code level for sustainable homes. In comparison, nearly 30,000 homes have been completed to the level 3 of the code, since it was introduced four years ago.

Housing is responsible for more than a quarter of the UK's carbon dioxide emissions. But from 2016, all new homes must be built to the equivalent of level 5 of the code for sustainable homes, a step down from the previous Government's aspiration to make every home compliant with level 6 of the code by 2016.

This means all new homes must reduce their carbon emissions and use only on-site power for heating and lighting (excluding appliances). Effectively making new homes a carbon sink is likely to require microgeneration of electricity and heat from wind or solar technology.

However, significant carbon savings can also be made by using renewable materials in construction, which have far less embodied carbon (the carbon used to make any product, bring it to market and dispose of it) than their non-renewable alternatives.

In 2009, NNFCC built one of the UK's first homes made to level 4 of the code using only renewable or recycled materials. The house demonstrated how an environmentally friendly and highly energy-efficient, three-bedroom, detached family home could be built for 10 per cent less than the cost of a conventional house of the same size and code.

This is in contrast to the Department for Communities and Local Government research, which revealed that an average code level 6 house cost £39,000 more than a home complying with the 2006 energy requirements in the building regulations, while an average level 3 house costs just £3,460 more than the standard three-bedroom semi.