When asked if all new build homes should be built to an EPC rating of A or B, Bird said yes but challenges remain.
She said the Future Homes Standard was helping housebuilders address this, but a firm roadmap with more detail was needed.
The Future Homes Standard requires all new-build homes to be developed with low carbon heating and to be energy efficient by 2025.
Andy Mason, head of strategic partnerships and housing at Lloyds Banking Group, said the new build sector was well placed to benefit from the green revolution. He also said house builders were at the forefront of driving toward more efficient goals.
However, he agreed that there were challenges with building homes to an A or B rating due to issues with the current EPC framework.
“When we’re testing out new technology like air source heat pumps, the EPC framework doesn’t work perfectly today for the technology of the future,” he added.
Air source heat pumps are not currently recommended to improve a home’s EPC rating because the methodology calculates how much the cost of fuel would be for each square metre of a home.
As electricity is more expensive than gas, air source heat pumps often lead to a home’s energy efficiency rating being downgraded, despite them being a more efficient way of providing heat.
Mason said: “There’s a potential that today the Future Home Standard on the basis of the EPC framework may actually not look like a highly-rated efficient product.”
Bird agreed and said this highlighted the scale of the challenge as there were many things which still needed to be lined up.
She added: “Whilst broadly, we’re in support of EPCs, we know that they really need to be fixed. They’re not yet future ready, they’re not yet future fit.”
Regarding existing housing stock, Kevin Roberts, director of Legal and General Mortgage Club, said advisers were at the start of the journey but the messages being delivered by policymakers were still “a little bit muddled”.
He added: “Our regulation is for mortgage advice, it’s not for green advice so we have got to understand what is our role. We’ve got to make sure we don’t venture into advice that either we’re not able to give or that might come and bite us in a few years’ time.”
Mason said it was also about convincing people in lower-rated homes that it was better to spend their money on renovating a home to make it greener rather than refurbishing a room.
Watch the video embedded [8:37] hosted by Shekina Tuahene, commercial editor at Mortgage Solutions, featuring Andy Mason, head of strategic partnerships and housing at Lloyds Banking Group Bukky Bird, group sustainability director at Barratt Developments and Kevin Roberts, director of Legal and General Mortgage Club.
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