A boost in sustainable electricity generation would reduce office carbon emissions by almost as much as refurbishing every office building in the country, the study concluded. The research examined the impacts of refurbishing office buildings to make them extremely energy efficient, known as a "deep energy retrofit". Should the country boost greener electricity – by replacing coal with natural gas and hydro, and building more wind farms – office buildings' emissions in the same period would drop to just over 3.5m tonnes, without refits. The best outcome for the climate is a combination of strategies – boosting renewable grid electricity and the refit of all office buildings using sustainable sourcing and disposal policies. Ghose also found the benefit of installing solar panels was highly dependent on the characteristics of the building.

Source: Stuff June 15, 2020 17:01 UTC