Putting the business case back into Net Zero
The mood around Net Zero has shifted in ways that would have seemed unlikely just a few years ago, says BESA’s Director of Technical, Kevin Morrissey.
What once seemed to be a collective sprint towards a cleaner future now feels like a tug-of-war between ambition and anxiety as geopolitical forces reshape the Net Zero agenda.
Changing views around this issue were evident during the recent contribution to Radio 4’s Today programme by former Prime Minister Theresa May, where we were reminded that it was her government that introduced the UK’s target of achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050. A goal that has shaped much strategic thinking since then but is in stark contrast to the current leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, who is a self-declared “Net Zero sceptic”.
May was critical of her Party’s new position: “People talk about the cost of doing something – there’s a cost to not doing something as well,” she told the Today programme. She also explained that from its outset, the 2050 target was a means to drive innovation and said she still considered Net Zero to be “the growth opportunity of the century”.
However, while our former PM clearly anticipates opportunities for long-term growth, the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, recently suggested that Net Zero policies were having a negative impact on the global economy and predicted a future that included the possibility of “climate-related economic shocks”. This is, in part, due to the cost of electrification and levies on fossil fuels resulting in high energy prices impacting industrial, commercial and domestic consumers across the UK.
Greenhushing
For businesses, this change of mood has led to ‘greenhushing’, when firms downplay or quietly shelve their climate pledges and large fossil fuel enterprises, such as BP and Shell, scale back on their renewable programmes.
For domestic consumers, it was encouraging to note that a YouGov survey (November 2025) reported that 60% of Britons remain supportive of Net Zero targets, although less than 40% thought the government were doing enough to support the transition and only 2% think we will get there by 2050.
The latest government announcements relating to the Heat Network Technical Assurance Scheme (HNTAS) consultation and the £15 billion committed to the Warm Homes Plan, described by Kier Stramer as a “turning point”, may be a step in the right direction. However, whether these are enough to maintain the level of public support in the face of broader cost-of-living pressures and many homes living in fuel poverty remains to be seen.
The success of these initiatives also depends on not repeating mistakes of the past; making homes more thermally efficient without dealing with ventilation is a recipe for poor indoor air quality (IAQ), resulting in damp, mould and the ensuing health and wellbeing issues. Currently, the impact on UK health services linked to poor homes and buildings is reported to be in the region of £1.4 billion per annum, but the impact on national productivity and personal attainment is considerably more.
So, what part should BESA members and their supply chains be playing?
We should double down on Theresa May’s innovation challenge and maximise the opportunity that schemes like the Warm Homes Plan and HNTAS create. Whilst there have been some initial concerns about the focus on the thermal aspect of homes, with less emphasis on ventilation, competent designers and contractors understand the need to consider the internal environment holistically.
Our industry continues to find new ways to meet climate goals and make the built environment more resilient, healthier and future proof. We have invested in renewable heating and cooling, considerably ramping up our deployment of heat pumps, for example, and following the current consultation, the implementation of HNTAS will see a renewed focus on tackling the poor performance of heat networks – a potentially game-changing low carbon solution.
There’s no denying that progress has been much slower than we would have liked, but there is still a lot of low-hanging fruit to harvest – not least in the shape of retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency and wellbeing, which could have hugely positive economic and social implications. Buildings are responsible for 30% of the world’s energy usage and they also offer the greatest energy reduction potential of all economic sectors. World Economic Forum (WEF) researchers calculate that energy intensity in buildings could be reduced by 38% using existing solutions – increasing asset values by as much as 15% through high quality retrofits.
Productivity
There are also much wider benefits from investing in energy efficient retrofits, including reduced staff absenteeism and improved productivity (because retrofitted facilities are higher quality), and the creation of 3.2 million jobs worldwide to deliver retrofit programmes.
However, persistent inflation and an abrupt change of direction in the US under Donald Trump have shaken the business community’s confidence in renewables and the wider Net Zero target. This so-called ‘business’ approach ignores the enormous economic potential of decarbonisation and the significant fiscal impact better buildings have on health, wellbeing and human aspiration.
The surge in AI is accompanied by billions of dollars of investment in data centres driven by the US and is, therefore, also completely dependent on finding efficient methods for running and cooling these increasingly energy-hungry facilities. The amount of innovation going into new cooling solutions alone for data centres could have huge knock-on benefits for the built environment more generally.
In the UK, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) kicked off 2026 with a new year ‘to do’ list that included a pledge to “build, baby, build”, which involves “speeding up the planning process” as part of its commitment to “end homelessness”.
It also wants to create “a fairer deal for leaseholders and restore pride in local communities” while making more homes “safe and secure”, all backed by the government’s promise to build 1.5 million new dwellings before the end of this Parliament.
That’s an ambitious list for a single 12-month period, and totally impossible without a huge investment in new building engineering technologies and skills alongside modern methods of construction. BESA will continue to press that case to government, but we wholeheartedly welcome this implied ambition to deliver a higher quality, safer and more resilient built environment.
Our sector has adapted to big societal changes before and we can do it again – the transition to condensing boilers being a case in point. We will be warmer and richer thanks to Net Zero – not poorer and colder as some in business seem to believe.
There is another massive opportunity to improve health conditions in homes thanks to the passing of Awaab’s Law late last year, which mandates social landlords to respond quickly to damp and mould problems. Our Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation groups have been banging this drum for some years, and we are ready to support.
We will also continue to focus on the obvious link between Net Zero and the building safety agenda to drive compliance. The Building Safety Act is starting to get traction, with 2026 set to be a transformational year as the new Regulator’s team gets to grips with teething problems in the planning process. That can be an enabler for wider corporate investment and innovation in quality building solutions – backed up by proper professional accreditation such as BESA’s Competence Assessment Standard (CAS), which is used to audit all BESA members.
Rewards
However, as employers, we simply must do more to tackle the skills shortage this year. This is a major barrier to Net Zero and all our ambitions for a better built environment. The government’s policies have not been helpful, but there are huge rewards available for those firms prepared to invest in upskilling their workforces – because as the construction industry starts to tick up again, only competent and compliant firms will thrive.
BESA members have everything to play for this year and those who have signed up to our Member Pledge have already shown their commitment – not only to positioning their own businesses to take advantage of market trends, but helping their supply chain partners do the same by becoming BESA members so they can also prove their professional credentials to clients.
The Association will also continue to help government understand the detail of the pledges and targets it sets – and what it will take to achieve them. We are in the front line and can make targets meaningful and deliverable. It means we, like the world’s big corporations, have everything to play for.
There is an upfront cost, of course. There is with any business investment. But the bigger and more unimaginable cost is not doing this.
