The Green Guide to Specification provides guidance on making environmental choices when selecting construction materials and components. In the Green Guide, materials and components are assessed in terms of their environmental impacts, within comparable specifications, across their entire life cycles. This information is intended to help all those involved in the design, construction and management of buildings to reduce the environmental impacts of their properties.

The Guide presents information on the environmental impacts of building elements and specifications by ranking them on an A+ to E rating scale.  These environmental rankings are based on life cycle assessments (LCA) and the elements that are covered are, external walls, internal walls and partitions, roofs, ground floors, upper floors, floor finishes, windows, insulation and landscaping.

https://www.bre.co.uk/greenguide/podpage.jsp?id=2126

https://www.bre.co.uk/filelibrary/greenguide/PDF/BRE_Materials_Brochure.pdf

Decent Homes

In 1997, there were 2.1 million houses owned by local authorities and housing associations that didn’t meet the Decent Homes Standard. By the end of 2010, 92% of social housing met the standard of being warm and weatherproof with reasonably modern facilities.

The 2010 Government Spending Review settlement made £1.6bn available to local authority landlords to help tackle the backlog of homes that are not meeting the Decent Homes Standard. A total of 46 local authority and Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) landlords will receive backlog funding over the next four years to help refurbish around 150,000 homes.

The Homes and Communities Agency administer the Decent Homes Backlog Programme on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)

DCLG: https://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/decenthome

HCA: https://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ourwork/existing-stock