The U.K. Government in collaboration with the Building Research Establishment (BRE), Construction Industry Research and Information Association and through consultation with a Senior Steering Group, established a code for sustainable homes that gauges a home as a whole package and analyzes its sustainability against nine categories. These categories are:

  1. Energy/CO2
  2. Water
  3. Materials
  4. Surface water run-off
  5. Waste
  6. Pollution
  7. Health and well-being
  8. Management
  9. Ecology

When environmental consultancy wants to measure the sustainability of any home against these standards which are set above the minimum standards for code compliance, it uses 1 to 6 start rating system to establish overall sustainability performance of a new home. According to expert environmental consultant, a code for sustainable homes is established in order to guide building regulations with regards to carbon emissions and energy use. This in turn lends greater regulatory reliability and authenticity for the homebuilding industry. At each level, the code has minimum standards which provides meaningful information to home buyers and offers builders an opportunity to stand out while building new homes.

The levels of energy efficiency for the code are:

Code level 1 – 10%
Code level 2 – 18%
Code level 3 – 25%
Code level 4 – 44%
Code level 5 – 100%
Code level 6 – zero carbon

A professional environmental consultant opines that it is an age in which people have become more conscious of how their way of living has been affecting the health of environment. And, this is precisely the reason, why it is necessary for designers and builders to follow code for sustainable homes. By following this code, they are not only catering to the popular demand of the prospective inhabitants, but they are also contributing seriously to the wider efforts to save the environment from its deteriorating condition.