Energy Standards Review - Scottish Passivhaus Equivalent Working Group minutes: July 2024

Attendees and apologies

• Alan McAulay, Building Standards Hub and Local Authority Buildings Standards Scotland

• Bryan Leask, Rural and Island Housing Association Forum

• Chris Dobson, Wheatley Group

• Daniel Foulds, Building Standards Division

• Ingrid Berkeley, Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers

• Jamie Goth, Scottish Futures Trust

• Jocelyne Fleming, Chartered Institute of Building

• John Smith, Structural Timber Association

• Jonathan Hinds, The Passivhaus Trust

• Mark Wilkinson, Construction Products Association

• Michael Barton-Maynard, Building Standards Division

• Michael Jarvis, Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland

• Paul Keepins, Building Regulations Wales

• Peter Tait, Federation of Master Builders

• Richard Atkins, Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (Scheme Providers)

• Robert Toomey, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors

• Ryan Cossar, Scottish Futures Trust

• Stephen Garvin, Building Standards Division (co-chair)

• Stephen Good, Built Environment - Smarter Transformation (co-chair)

• Steve Fawcett, Homes for Scotland

• Steven Earlie, Offsite Solutions Scotland

• Steven Scott, Building Standards Division

• Stuart Henderson, Homes for Scotland

• Stuart Macpherson, Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers

• Vikki Bell, Building Standards Division

Apologies

• Anastasia Charalampidou, Scottish and Southern Energy

• Caitriona Jordan, Built Environment – Smarter Transformation

• Eli Harji, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations

• Michael McGurk, Scottish Property Federation

• Patrick Brown, The Scottish Heads of Property Federation

• Paul Touhy, The University of Strathclyde

• Thomas Lennon, Building Standards Division

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The co-chair welcomed the group thanking everyone for their engagement and contributions to the subgroup meetings. Apologies were given for the late circulation of meeting papers.

Members were reminded that the working group would look to reconvene again in October 2024 with the objective of providing consensus on a shared set of recommendations to be made to Scottish ministers. The focus of this meeting will be to sek feedback on the programme and high-level principles for a Passivhaus equivalent standard as will be presented during the meeting.

Members were also reminded of the immediate deadline of Friday 5th of July to share detail and insight on February 2023 Energy Standards compliant specifications. Research work will otherwise progress with the information already obtained by members.

BSD update on programme

Reference was made to document WG 30 (24)

It was noted that Mr McLennan, the Minister for Housing, now has responsibility for building standards. Since the previous working group meeting the opportunity has been taken to distil contributions from working group members and undertake the necessary work to brief and seek direction from the new Minister on this programme of work.

Officials offered an overview of the proposed three-stages of the amended programme noting the following:

• stage one efforts aim to formalise the principles and processes to have an agreed description of the Passivhaus equivalent standard and to enable laying of relevant changes to legislation in Parliament by 14 December, to give effect to the final proposal lodged by Alex Rowley MSP. This work includes launching an initial consultation by the end of July on the principles and processes, independent consultation analysis, and preparation of the necessary impact assessments to support the legislative process
• stage two would see a second consultation launched in summer 2025 on the details of the equivalent standard, to enable the development of the technical guidance. This stage would run alongside the development of a Scottish wrapper for the Home Energy Model (HEM). The aim would be to be in a position to publish the technical and procedural guidance and supporting tools early in 2026
• stage three would be the implementation of new requirements with a suggested date no earlier than Q2 2026. An implementation date will be set when regulations are laid in December 2024

Following questioning regarding the value of consultation work at this time and opportunities to inform or change direction of this work, officials noted:

• consultation on the principles and processes is necessary to outline what an equivalent standard may look like and determine the nature of change to legislation required to meet the intent of Mr Rowley’s final proposal
• the staged process considers live workstreams including the ongoing UK development of the HEM tool as well as parallel work to deliver the BSD Compliance Plan approach

Officials are open to comments and are happy to arrange discussions with working group members following the meeting.

The Passivhaus equivalent standard and regulatory changes

Reference was made to document WG 28 (24).

The co-chair reminded the working group of the overarching aim to establish recommendations to inform what an equivalent standard may look like and noted that the paper sets out the Scottish Government’s initial thoughts on its proposed form and content.

Officials briefed members on the contents of the paper, drawing attention to the following points:

• the desired outcomes of an equivalent standard are to seek improvements in energy performance and indoor environment quality as well as offering greater assurance that designed performance is delivered in practice. This needs to be deliverable at a national level, allow reasonable flexibility in how buildings are designed and delivered, reflecting the capacity of the construction sector. The needs of building users and in alignment with strategic climate and energy policy objectives
• it was reinforced that it is not the intent to simply adopt and implement Passivhaus for all new development rather than to seek a similar level of prescription on key elements of specification, or to deliver a calculated energy outcome at least as good as Passivhaus
• an equivalent standard should consider the practical application and outcomes of Passivhaus and the extent to which these may be implemented to establish challenging targets that can be delivered at a national level based on the industry’s current capacity for change. The intent should seek to encourage informed design decisions to increase assurance of building performance outcomes. And potentially recognise alternative means of compliance as part of improved minimum standards which do not restrict innovation or those who seek to go beyond the minimum targets set

The co-chair opened the meeting to questions and comments from members. The following comments were noted, and queries answered by officials:

• regarding the rationale and possible risks of a Q2 2026 implementation date, officials noted that this was the earliest possible implementation date based on the current work programme and not linked to the planned 2026 Scottish parliamentary elections. It remains the intent that the review would be completed, and all information will be made available within this parliamentary session. Furthermore, while there was cross-party support for this work, it is not immune to potential future change. However, the proposed development programme should avoid potential for late changes to the committed outcomes
• with regard to the need for transitional provisions, it was noted that these do not form part of change in standards as this is addressed by publication of amended provisions in advance of their application in new building warrant applications. There are no discussions at present on changes to procedural elements such as building warrant duration. Large developers may also seek to de-risk changes by front-loading warrants and staged warrants into the system ahead of the implementation date, however it is recognised that most SMEs will not have this ability, requiring to deliver to this standard soon after implementation. Hence the need for a reasonable lead-in period
• in relation to the possible introduction of embodied carbon targets within a similar timeframe, officials acknowledged that this topic has been consistently raised both during previous and current energy standards review. Officials noted that NPF4 Policy 2, requires a minimisation of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions and the use of materials with the lowest forms of embodied emissions. NPF4 is supported by a Delivery Programme which includes a commitment to prepare Planning and Climate Change guidance. This work is underway, informed by an Expert Advisory Group. The guidance will support implementation of NPF4 policy 2. Building Standards will have a role in regulating embodied carbon, however, it will seek to follow and align the approach undertaken by planning colleagues. While not a topic for the Passivhaus equivalent, officials continue to engage both with Scottish and UK colleagues on this matter
• it was queried whether there would be enough clarity on the principles and to an extent detail to signpost the direction of travel to enable necessary upskilling. Officials noted that the programme intends to de-risk transition, providing sufficient notice of change as well as continuing to work collaboratively with the industry to support change. While upskilling will be necessary to an extent, it was reiterated that building standards cannot be set at unattainable levels and must be reflective of the existing capacity of the sector. With a minimum two-year window before implementation, members should be proactive and beginning to have conversations about upskilling within their organisations as well as engaging with other relevant parts of government as soon as possible
• it was suggested that it may be more sensible to look at more but smaller step changes, utilising the enhanced SAP10 modelling approach as suggested by Homes for Scotland, in advance of the forthcoming Home Energy Model (HEM). Officials, however, noted that less frequent but more significant change has typically been favoured by industry over incremental steps. Members were also reminded that the intent of Mr Rowley’s Bill would still need to be met
• the importance of having effective and proven calculation tools from day one, was stressed in discussions, noting the benefits more accurate modelling has in supporting overarching compliance processes. It was, therefore, of concern to some that the proposal relies on the use of a tool that is not yet complete. It was suggested that PHPP could immediately be adopted without risk. It was countered that no modelling tool can be 100% accurate, and there is a need to accept there are always inherent flaws in the assumptions used for standardisation. Despite initial reservations regarding the accuracy of the HEM model by some, this has improved during its ongoing development. Furthermore, it was agreed by many that soft landings, such as user behaviour and building optimisation, also play an important role in addressing the performance gap, therefore building handover and education has an important role. Members were reminded of earlier collective agreement that the use of tools and quality assurance processes would help overcome the gap between designed and built performance. It was not clear whether the proposed approach would deliver this, therefore the working group agreed that further discussion on the matter was warranted
• an action was taken for the working group to discuss at a future meeting a risk-management approach in order to understand which combination of key elements leads to the greatest reduction in the performance gap. Key themes included:
  • the ability of target metrics to reduce energy demand and absolute value of gap
  • regulatory prescription against flexibility and innovation
  • reliability and variation of input data
  • modelling quality and accuracy
  • building use and behaviours
  • compliance and quality assurance
• on the likely scope of legislative change for December 2024, officials noted that current regulations appear to offer sufficient scope to be able to achieve the outcomes sought my Mr Rowley’s final proposal through minor amendment to secondary legislation. As such consideration is being given to a relatively small number of regulations and mandatory standards as candidates for change. Candidates for change, which would accommodate any confirmed prescription on the approach to setting targets and demonstrating compliance set out in the planned July consultation, will be refined in discussion with solicitors.

Next steps for the working group

Reflecting on the discussions, the following actions are to be taken forward by the working group:

It was agreed that the working group should meet two further times between now and October to develop and agree a set of recommendations for Scottish ministers, focusing on the key elements that should be prioritised in delivering a Passivhaus equivalent. The co-chair took an action to arrange dates aligning with general programme timescales.

Officials agreed to circulate the draft consultation paper to the working group for comment in the coming weeks. It was stressed that a quick turnaround on feedback would be necessary to meet publication dates.

Looking ahead to future stages of this work, a review of working group membership would be undertaken. Members were asked to give consideration to suitable representatives to support upcoming stages of this work.

Any other business and meeting close

No other business was raised.

Meeting closed.