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Display Energy Certificates

Display Energy Certificates (DECs) provide owners and occupiers with details of the actual energy performance of a building over a 12 month period i.e. how much energy it used in a year. All public authorities and institutions providing public services in a building with a total floor area over 1,000m2 must produce and prominently display a DEC for that building every year.

The DEC displays a grade from A (best) to G (worst) and allows owners and occupiers to compare the actual energy of different buildings or tenanted space and how performance has changed over a three year period. DECs also come with a recommendation report which provides advice on energy efficiency improvement opportunities.

Further information can be found in DCLG’s ‘A guide to Display Energy Certificates and advisory reports for public buildings’

DECs are currently not a legal requirement for private sector organisations, however there has been a strong call from industry, led by the UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC), for their mandatory roll out across the private sector. Primarily because of thie ability influence the behaviour of owners and occupiers by making energy performance data accessible and simple to understand. DECs are considered by many to be more useful than Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), during the operational life of a building, since they measureperformance based on actual energy consumption rather than theoretical performance and therefore provides information on how efficiently a building is currently being run. Further information on the campaign for the mandatory roll out of DECs can be found on the UKGBC’s website.

There was disappointment among BBP members that the Government chose not to mandate their requirement in private sector buildings through the Energy Bill 2011, however the BBP feel that DECs may currently not be wholly appropriate for the this sector, specifically multi-occupied offices and shopping centres, and in their current form fear they may not achieve the associated and vital aim of driving market change in reducing energy consumption, in addition to their primary purpose of reporting operational energy use. The BBP believes that a rating system which accounts for the separation of energy use and degrees of influence between owner and occupier may be more influential in driving market change and our thoughts have been outlined in the following Position Paper.

As a result the BBP have established a Working Group with the aim of developing and piloting a Landlord Energy Rating.

• 13/02/2012

  BBP POSITION PAPER: DECs & LERs

  Paper highlighting the BBP’s position regarding DECs for multi-occupied offices and its plans to develop a rating system which accounts for the separation of energy use and degrees of influence between owner and occupier.