Context 165 - August 2020

Editor Rob Cowan Editorial Coordinator Michael Taylor, ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com Editorial Board Tom Copp Nigel Crowe Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Rebecca Madgin Andrew McClelland Fiona Newton Louise Priestman Gordon Sorensen Jonathan Taylor Michael Taylor (chair) Cartoons by Rob Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2020 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury,Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA 01747 871717 context@cathcomm.co.uk www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to corporate bodies at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £60.00 Elsewhere £90.00 Context on-line archive Past issues of Context can be viewed on the IHBC website. The archive provides a searchable database and reference for key articles. See www.ihbc.org.uk/page55/ context_archive. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily held by the IHBC or the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication.While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Context themes and copy deadlines Context is published five times a year, in March, May, July, September and November. The next three themes and copy deadlines are: Oxford , November, issue 166 (11 September) Urban Design , March, issue 167 (08 January) Digital Technology and its Applications , May, issue 168 (12 March) Please contact Michael Taylor at ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com to discuss any editorial submissions or for information about the Context editorial board. 2 C O N T E X T 1 6 5 : A U G U S T 2 0 2 0 Briefing Climate change update John Preston writes: Does any Context reader know Mark Carney well enough to bend his ear? The former governor of the Bank of England is now both finance adviser to the prime minister for the UN climate conference COP26 and the UN’s special envoy for climate action and finance. There is an urgent need to promote awareness of heritage and traditional buildings in financial circles: the heritage sector has been alarmed by the resurfacing of a 2017 report on ‘Energy costs of historic preservation’. This flawed report suggested that heritage legislation for the historic environment in the UK presented a serious obstacle to carbon reduction. The Environmental Audit Committee’s Inquiry into Energy Efficiency and Existing Homes provided an opportunity for the sector to present its case, but our message (with countering evidence) needs to get out as widely as possible. COP26 has been postponed to November 2021 due to Covid‑19. This should give the heritage sector some leeway for submitting to the IPCC through the Climate Heritage Network. For the moment, though, there is a high risk that the UK’s historic environment will be left behind in, and potentially severely damaged by, efforts to secure a green recovery from the pandemic. I urge you to read the Climate Coalition’s Home Truths report. The coalition, which has the National Trust and CPRE among its supporters, has organised a mass virtual lobby of Parliament to promote its Plan for a Green, Fair and Healthy Recovery, which it is taking forward to COP26 (www.theclimatecoalition. org/glasgowactionplan). This plan includes ‘making all homes energy efficient by 2030’ (no qualifications or exceptions – compare with the government Clean Growth Strategy’s ‘where practical, cost-effective and affordable’). This headline-grabbing aim is fraught with multiple risks in terms of wasting carbon on inappropriate works, building and occupant health, and industry competence and capacity. The Climate Coalition’s plan considers the built environment in terms only of carbon performance, not (unlike the natural environment) of its contribution to quality of life and wellbeing. There is no mention of culture at all. This regrettably narrow approach matches, but should not be excused by, the government’s omission of the built environment from its 25-year Environment Plan and the Environment Bill. We desperately need a more holistic vision to match the opportunity. In the STBA (Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance) we have been discussing the need to move beyond purely