Key concepts in sustainable building - The Hempcrete Topic: Designing and Building with Hemp-lime - page 73

A truly 'zero-carbon' building, built from cob (mixed from clay dug on-site), hempcrete and timber.
The embodied energy associated with this family home is much lower than that for a conventional
building.
In February 2013 the UK government reaffirmed its commitment to its own target for all
new homes to be 'zero carbon' from 2016. The concept of 'zero-carbon homes', as defined
by the government, has always focused to a worrying extent on energy in use, ignoring the
embodied energy in materials used to achieve 'carbon savings' in the building. However,
after complaints from the construction industry about the cost of meeting even the energy-
in-use target, there has been a relaxing of the energy-saving targets set for the industry, and
the definition of zero carbon has now been watered down to an extent that makes it almost
completely meaningless. The current definition is that:
Zero carbon is achieved through good fabric energy efficiency, inclusion of on-
site low-carbon heat and power technologies, and use of Allowable Solutions