Commercial Finance Specialists

Commercial developments should be subject to the same Display Energy Certificate labelling scheme as public sector buildings, it has been claimed.

Commercial buildings should be subject to the same requirements to disclose their energy usage and efficiency as public buildings, it has been claimed.

Public sector buildings "stick out like a sore thumb" compared to other commercial development investment projects in terms of energy efficiency because the figures are available, according to the UK Green Building Council.

However, chief executive of the organisation Paul King said: "If government rolled out the same labelling scheme for commercial buildings, we would see that although our public sector buildings are awful, they are probably no worse than private sector buildings such as offices, shops and warehouses."

Display Energy Certificates show the energy consumption of a building using gas, electricity and other meters. They are required to be displayed at all times and be clearly visible to the public.

Mr King was responding to figures obtained by the Guardian and published under the Freedom of Information Act, which showed that public building emissions were much worse than previously estimated.

Among the worst offenders were hospitals and prisons.