Heat in Buildings Bill consultation: equalities impact assessment

3. Summary of desired outcomes of the Consultation and subsequent Heat in Buildings Bill

3.1 Our plans for decarbonising Scotland’s buildings were set out in our 2021 Heat in Buildings Strategy. This made clear the ways in which regulations requiring us all to reduce our energy demand and change our heating systems will be essential to reducing emissions from Scotland’s buildings and delivering our public Net Zero goal by 2045.

3.2 The Strategy also made clear that no one should be left behind in the heat transition and had, as part of its vision an aspiration that poor energy efficiency is removed as a driver of fuel poverty. It also committed to our proposals and actions as a whole contribute to the removal of fuel poverty. We believe that the changes and improvements delivered by the proposed way forward laid out in this consultation will make our homes and buildings cleaner, healthier, greener, and easier to heat.

3.3 We have introduced standards for new buildings (domestic and non-domestic) which will prohibit the use of polluting heating systems from 1 April 2024^[2]; we now need to focus upon Scotland’s existing homes and buildings. At the moment, 21% of our emissions come from our domestic and non-domestic buildings, with around 5,000 clean heating systems installed per year in Scottish homes. However, to reach our net zero target, this number must increase.

3.4 For non-domestic properties with 230,000 non-domestic buildings and 17 TWh energy consumed, this indicates significantly higher energy use of non-domestic buildings when compared to domestic buildings.

3.5 As well as changes to the heating systems in individual properties, we are also progressing work to deploy “heat networks” across Scotland, which could play an important part in reducing or removing emissions associated with heating buildings on that network. We believe that they will play an important part in the heat story across Scotland.

3.6 The Consultation sets out proposals on the ways in which regulations made using the powers in a “Heat in Buildings” Bill might look and operate.