To encourage the adoption of design measures, which reduce building energy consumption and associated carbon emissions and minimise reliance on active building services systems.

• Maximise the financial and environmental benefits of adopting passive and other low carbon solutions throughout the design process.
• Encourage the use of free heating and cooling strategies, to reduce the building’s energy demands and eliminate or reduce the use of active cooling.
• Ensure that the most appropriate low and zero carbon technologies (LZC) are adopted for the project.
• Promote innovation to deliver practical and cost-effective low carbon building design.

Factors such as the building massing, layout, orientation, fabric design, daylighting provision, ventilation strategies and thermal mass will significantly affect the heat gains and losses in a building. Air-conditioning is a high energy user and can conflict with more biophilic approaches to health and wellbeing. It should be avoided or minimised where possible as its adoption will typically increase operational energy costs by around 50% to the running costs of the building1CIBSE. Guide F: Energy efficiency of buildings. London, CIBSE; 2012.. The range of low and zero carbon technologies that supply electricity and heat is growing rapidly, and capital and operating costs are decreasing with economies of scale. This often makes them a cost-effective solution for achieving a reduction in operational CO₂ emissions.