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Overview

As part of our successful 'Securing the Future' series of Conferences, Sustainable Communities ‘09: Securing our Low Carbon Future Conference and Exhibition is the third in this series of Conferences and will examine the link between the Government's national Sustainable Development strategy as applied to the Sustainable Communities agenda and achieving the key objectives and priorities behind the groundbreaking Climate Change and Energy Strategies: to create a low carbon economy, tackling the unprecedented challenge of climate change and the future security of our energy supplies.

This prestigious event on the 12th November at Church House, Westminster, will examine the requirements for success in meeting our carbon reduction targets within our Homes and Communities, incorporating; the responsibility of the public sector to lead, industry to enable and the population to act, in order to achieve progress on this agenda.

On the 29th June 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined the proposed plan for delivering `Building Britain’s Future’. This built on the documents `Building Britain’s Future - Investing in a Low Carbon Britain’ published on 23rd April 2009, and `Low Carbon Industrial Strategy: A Vision’, published in March of this year. These documents set out the Government’s green investment plans, as outlined in the Budget.

"Already the global market for low carbon goods and services is worth £3 trillion, and this is projected to grow to over £4.3 trillion by 2014." 'Building Britain’s Future - Investing in a Low Carbon Britain'

In Budget 2009, Chancellor Alistair Darling and Rt Hon Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined the investment strategy behind the `Big Shift’ required to secure our low carbon future - underpinning the requirement for a “technological revolution” to set the stage for progress in delivering this agenda.

The Budget provided more than £1.4 billion of extra targeted support for the low carbon sector and these measures, taken together with those already implemented, will enable £10.4 billion of low carbon investment over the next three years.

This investment strategy included the first legally binding carbon budgets for the first three five-year periods 2008-2012, 2013-2017 and 2018-2022. A revised target to reduce emissions to at least 34 per cent below 1990 emissions by 2018-2020, and looked forward to the publication of an `Energy and Climate Change Strategy’ due this summer.

'Building Britain’s Future - Investing in a Low Carbon Britain' outlines the areas to be targeted by current investment and those now outlined in the Budget. The main funding streams include:

  • £2.3 billion package to support the development of green technologies and solutions for carbon reduction;
  • £4 billion new capital investment from the European Investment Bank for energy projects, building on the schemes already in place to support businesses, households and the public sector; and
  • An additional £365 million to facilitate a step change in the efficiency of schools, hospitals and other public sector organisations.

As part of this and other funding streams, some of the key initiatives are outlined below:

  • £100 million of new funding for loans for small and medium companies to invest in energy efficiency through the Carbon Trust Scheme, this will help save £23 million on bills and 140,000 tCO2 per year
  • £65 million of new investment in schools, hospitals and public buildings to improve energy efficiency, this will help save £18 million and 100,000tCO2 per year
  • £10 million for capital grants in waste processing technologies, to help divert waste from landfill in 2009-10, with the landfill tax to increase by £8 per year until 2013
  • £25 million to support the deployment of community heating infrastructure over the next two years to support exemplar low carbon energy infrastructure schemes, which support housing development
  • £100 million of new investment as part of the new housing package for construction of new homes with higher efficiency standards, with £6.9 billion Home Energy Saving Programme to retrofit existing housing stock including the £1 billion package of new measures announced last September, to reduce fuel bills of vulnerable people in social housing
  • £20 million for supporting the development of infrastructure for lead cities and regions
  • £405 million Low Carbon Investment Fund (LCIF) to support the development of a world-leading low carbon energy and advanced green manufacturing sector in the UK and to fund essential demonstration projects:
  • To stimulate new investment in smart grids - to contribute to the roll out of smart meters to all homes for completion by end 2020
  • The Renewables Obligation (RO) ensures investment in the renewable energy sector, reviewed on 1st April to increase the level of support for offshore wind 15 per cent target for sourcing our energy from renewable by 2020
  • £45 million to encourage the public and domestic sector to invest in small scale renewable energy technologies, electricity and heat primarily through the Low Carbon Buildings Programme - the Energy Act provides for Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) for small-scale electricity generation to be in place by 2010 - consultation to be published in Summer 2009, and a Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) expected to be in place by April 2011
  • £20 million Department for Transport’s Low Carbon Vehicle Procurement Programme
  • Combined Heat and Power is now exempt from the Climate Change Levy until 2023, and will provide £25 million to fund 10 new schemes to provide low carbon heat to entire communities - potentially unlocking £2.5 billion of new investment into the sector.
  • The Government has also already introduced the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which extends an emissions cap to around 5,000 large businesses and public sector organisations – targeting electricity and energy use emissions not covered by EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and Climate Change Agreements, saving approximately 4 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020.

On the 15th July, the Government published `The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan’, which set out in detail the route map for creating a low carbon Britain, giving information on measures to target carbon emissions from energy, homes and transport.

Sustainable Communities ’09: Securing our Low Carbon Future Conference and Exhibition will examine the progress to date and the details of the Government’s policy moving forward, defining the priorities for the future in order to address the most challenging crisis of our time.