Introduction

The topic sustainability is active amongst all bodies of industries, the Government, designers, engineers and builders. With increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), the major cause for the change in climate, propose the issue to minimise carbon levels. Fossil fuels (i.e. coal, natural gas and oil) release GHG when burned which are thought to be linked to climate change.

More than a quarter of the UK's carbon dioxide emissions are from occupational energy, the energy used to heat, light and run our homes. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that homes are built in a way that minimises the use of energy and reduces these harmful emissions since the building sector is the prime area which emits a large amount of CO2 emissions. Therefore, as engineers our challenge is to reduce these CO2 emissions from newly built homes in order to achieve the UK's carbon reduction goals. Building regulations have been established by the Government to construct sustainable housing and then finally 'zero carbon' by the year 2016. 'Zero carbon' is when the net carbon dioxide emissions resulting from all energy used in the building including appliances is zero

The objective of LEBD class is to design safe, comfortable and energy efficient homes, in order to achieve a net zero carbon community by meeting the Code for Sustainable Homes requirements.