Rob East of Newland Homes, explains how the Gloucestershire housebuilder took a “conviction-based” decision to redefine its design approach beyond the norm to provide climate-resilient, and even carbon-negative homes.
It was our development director, Jeremy Drew, who first raised the issue of our strategy for climate change. He, along with other senior members of the team, challenged us to question what more could we do as a business to cut our reliance on fossil fuels. It wasn’t driven by regulation, but by conviction. If we were serious about building for the future, we had to be bolder and more ambitious.
Consequently, we installed air source heat pumps at our next development and planned to double our solar provision. The SAP assessor calculated the design would achieve an 85% carbon reduction – a brilliant result, well above the Building Regulation threshold.
However, we felt we could do better, and we asked ourselves a blunt question: why settle for compliance when we could aim for zero carbon? Through extensive discussions with our SAP assessor and after making further investigations, we committed to more than double our solar provision: enough to create homes that generate more energy than they consume. In other words, homes that deliver zero carbon in primary energy use.
That exchange set us on a journey that has redefined how Newland Homes designs and builds our homes. Today, we continue to push forward, leading the industry, certainly in our region, among both SMEs and plcs.
Going beyond compliance
We chose SAP as our benchmark as it’s widely recognised and government approved. Although it’s not flawless (no model is), it underpins Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), which the public are familiar with, and crucially, it gives us a metric that is both calculable and comparable across developments.
This metric has allowed us to evidence that our homes exceed the anticipated Future Homes Standard (widely expected to be a 75-80% reduction on 2013 regulations) and that zero carbon homes are not a theoretical ambition to be phased in – they are achievable here and now. We are building the homes of tomorrow, today.
It’s a simple approach, in principle:
- Build fabric first, with a lot more insulation and airtight construction to minimise heat demand. The insulation in our floors and roofs is almost at Passivehaus level, which minimises heat demand (approx 27-31% carbon reduction)
- Use air source heat pumps, which deliver 3.5 to four times the energy they consume (equating to a further 55-62% carbon reduction)
- Top up the shortfall with renewable energy, primarily photovoltaics
The outcome is EPCs that show negative CO2 emissions and energy rating scores circa 100, the top possible score.
Leaning into the complexity
Let’s be clear, switching from installing gas boilers as standard practice to air source heat pumps hasn’t been easy. We’ve had to bring in M&E consultants to manage the interplay between trades and we’ve leaned heavily on manufacturer training to upskill our teams.
However, the effort has paid off. Five years in, we have real-world experience of designing, building and living in zero carbon homes, using renewable technology that wasn’t and still isn’t commonplace in the UK. We know what specification tweaks make a difference, and how to deliver reliably at scale. That confidence makes us a better housebuilder, not because we chased
the easy wins, but because we leaned into the complexity.
Performance in use vs performance on paper
Another challenge is that the SAP metric is a design stage model that doesn’t guarantee performance in use. A home may be capable of operating at zero carbon, but only if the homeowner uses it as designed. Switch off the heat pump because the controls confuse you, and the whole balance collapses.
That’s why we’ve invested in homeowner education and post-occupancy follow-up. We give customers a walkthrough of their systems and are always available to answer questions and iron out any teething issues. The results speak for themselves – we know our customers enjoy very low energy bills.
Level the playing field
At Newland Homes, we’ve chosen to invest ahead of regulation with insulation close to Passivhaus standards, high-spec heat pumps and solar PV arrays that are 10% more efficient than any other technology on the market. None of this is the cheapest option.
The uncomfortable reality is that not every housebuilder is making the same choices. Many are still scraping past the regs, waiting for the Future Homes Standard to force their hand, despite local authorities declaring climate emergencies. Yet we’re all competing in the same marketplace. Early adopters shoulder the cost while others profit from outdated standards. Buyers often don’t grasp the difference when they’re comparing homes side by side.
Government, lenders and industry bodies need to recognise and reward leadership, as this is lacking. Mortgage providers could offer green discounts on genuinely zero carbon homes. Local authorities could accelerate planning for schemes that go beyond compliance. Without these levers, we risk innovators being undercut by those dragging their feet, when the climate imperative demands the opposite.
Looking ahead
This journey continues to evolve. As I write this, provisional Met Office data confirms that summer 2025 was officially the warmest summer on record for the UK, with heat building quickly and lingering. When I first entered the industry, our challenge was keeping homes warm. Now, the same airtight insulation that minimises heat demand in the winter risks turning rooms into ovens in the summer.
We’ve been building to Part O standards since 2022, ahead of the Future Homes Standard, and we’re pushing further. Our homes use glazing with a G-value of 0.4 to cut solar gain, but we recognise this isn’t enough on its own.
We’re lucky to have an in-house team of professionals who know their stuff. We’re about to embark on a redesign of several of our house types to hardwire climate resilience into the architecture. Our houses may well look very different in the coming years as we wrestle with this challenge. Nevertheless, adapting designs to cope with new climate realities is part of being a responsible developer.
Development as climate action
Every new zero carbon home reduces emissions, slashes energy bills, and chips away at the UK’s fossil fuel reliance. If we do not build them, we lock families into draughty, inefficient housing stock for another generation. It’s rewarding to know that we’ve now completed over 300 zero carbon homes, with hundreds more in the pipeline to come.
However, the hard truth is that, even with the Future Homes Standard in place, most new homes won’t reach the level of carbon neutrality we’ve already achieved. As a company we have more than halved our operational carbon emissions and cut carbon intensity by almost two-thirds in the last four years, underlying our commitment to being one of the UK’s most climate considerate housebuilders. I’m proud of what Newland Homes has delivered. We’ve proved zero carbon can be done. The challenge now is for the rest of the industry to catch up.
Rob East MCIAT is associate technical director at Newland Homes