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Councils introduce office laws to help environment and energy efficiency
Date: 23/04/2008
From this month forward organisations around England and Wales are being warned that they will require an energy certificate if constructing, renting, leasing or selling an office.
The legislation is similar to the home information pack used for housing sales recently in the UK in the way it will judge a buildings energy efficiency and carbon emissions in the same way as appliances are now assessed using a rating of A being the best and G the worst.
Responsibility will be on the builder or company in charge of construction of new buildings to provide the owner with the certificate. In the case that a building is sold or rented then the onus will be on the owner or landlord.
Factors that can affect this are areas such as air conditioning which would have a D rating whereas natural ventilation would obtain a B rating. Overall use of energy in the office would also do a great deal to aid this process. Document management has been pointed out as having a major effect on office disposal. If offices can use paper as little as possible then that itself is a great asset to energy efficiency and the environment.
Research however has shown that around 1 in 10 businesses had any awareness of the new legislation so companies are advised to check out these new rules and make sure they are abiding by them when they are either introduced or introducing someone else to a new office.
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