Landlords are waiting for Labour – 100 days in power and counting – to decide on the future of energy performance certificates (EPCs).

It’s a monumental call, given that Keir Starmer has pledged to upgrade 19 million of the UK’s most poorly insulated homes. 

The questions are many … how do we incentivise people to switch to low carbon heating? Should there be structured bonuses for taking on a green mortgage? How big a workforce, indeed skillset, will be needed to deliver net zero? Who trains the craftsmen? Who funds it all? And that for starters.

But I believe passionately that EPCs should be at the heart of deliberations as a policy tool for benchmarking and tracking progress – and here are four principles that Labour should follow:

1. Change the EPC. Elmhurst believes strongly that the current EPC requires an update as it simply shows the energy cost of a property – i.e. how cheap or expensive a home might be to run on an A to G rating scale and based on a standard occupancy model. We have been calling for a change to the EPC since 2019. Thankfully, the government has now said a consultation on what the ‘New EPC’ might measure and how it could look will arrive before the end of 2024. This is very good news.

2. Communicate EPCs more clearly with homeowners. EPCs should highlight the ‘Three Cs’: energy cost, energy consumption, and carbon emissions to homeowners. The EPC should also give information about possible energy efficiency improvements which includes low carbon heating solutions, as well as tips for reducing bills. It should also be renewed much more frequently than every 10 years – the current timescale has resulted in vast numbers of EPCs being significantly out of date.

3. Incentivise low carbon heating solutions. One of the best ways to achieve this is by rebalancing tax to favour electricity over gas, helping to make the case for a move away from fossil fuels. Moreover, the Energy Efficiency Taskforce could at the same time work with financial institutions to make green mortgages and green loans even more attractive to homeowners deliberating on making the switch.

4. Focus on net zero and energy efficiency training. Elmhurst has a total of approximately 15,000 energy assessors registered, of which around 7,600 are domestic energy assessors (DEAs). Together, Elmhurst’s DEAs lodged around one million EPCs in 2023. EPC reform looks set to focus on training and competency levels – something we welcome at Elmhurst as we place a big focus on continuing professional development and training to fill gaps in technical competence. However, we know the issue of equipping the UK with skills for net zero is much broader than this and a joined up approach guided by a Taskforce would support here. 

            EPCs are a crucial part of Britain’s delivery and progress tracking of our Net Zero 2050 target. They’re not fit for purpose at the moment and changing them to do the job properly is a must.

• Stuart Fairlie is Managing Director at Elmhurst Energy, the UK’s largest independent provider of energy assessment, retrofit and property professional training, software and accreditation *