The UK Green Building Council and the Zero Carbon Hub have published the final report from the joint task group on Sustainable Community Infrastructure.

The findings point clearly towards a future in which community scale heating, water harvesting, waste disposal and waste re-use all have a key role to play. Infrastructure such as this, when planned and delivered in an integrated way, can offer considerable carbon and cost savings and community benefits.

Key recommendations include that local authorities should develop 'Sustainability Option Plans', to identify opportunities to deliver joined-up sustainable community infrastructure and work in partnership with the private sector to supply this; and public sector buildings should be required, where available and viable, to connect to existing or planned community heat networks, to provide an 'anchor l oad' of demand, and large businesses should be encouraged to do the same.

It also said the 'allowable solutions' mechanism should be used as a way of providing additional ring fenced capital to support the delivery of heat infrastructure. Government has said that developers will be able to invest in so-called allowable solutions in order to meet the required standard when constructing new zero carbon buildings.

Paul King, chief executive UK-GBC said: "Our homes and buildings cannot be sustainable in isolation. In many cases it makes sense to join up delivery of infrastructure such as energy, water and waste at a community scale. There has been an assumption that consumers are instinctively against things like district heat or waste-to-energy plants, but our research suggests that is no longer the case.

"However, delivering sustainable community infrastructure, particularly district heating, is often still seen as expensive and high risk, which is why we need the public sector to play a key role in providing the anchor loads necessary to instil confidence and make schemes viable.

"It also makes a huge amount of sense to enable local energy infrastructure to be recognised as part of the zero carbon 'allowable solutions' for new homes and buildings. This would offer the industry a cost-effective means of meeting the needs of new development in ways that will benefit existing communities too."

David Adams, Director of the Zero Carbon Hub said: "Community energy systems are an important component of delivering low carbon energy on larger developments. This report reinforces the key role that government can play, both providing demand as a client and enabling provision of heat infrastructure through allowable solutions."

Source: http://www.ukgbc.org