My colleague, Richard John, AECOM Europe's head of sustainability, along with other business leaders presented the Copenhagen Communiqué to Gordon Brown in early December.
The Communiqué said that: 'these are difficult and challenging times for the international business community and a poor outcome from the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will only make them more so, by creating uncertainty and undermining confidence.'

Has the conference delivered? Has it increased confidence and done away with uncertainty? What effect will the Copenhagen findings and decisions have on the H&V industry? What we now know is that no legally binding targets came out of the meeting but climate change was in the spotlight for a two week period. Many great speeches from world leaders asked for great change in attitudes but the outcome was really quite limited.

Even though COP15 in Copenhagen didn't answer all the questions, the H&V industry has to take up the challenge of energy efficiency and carbon saving. Buildings use up 50% of the world's energy, so it is absolutely essential for our industry to be ahead of the game.

Here, building services companies are tapping into the green economy and a series of innovative new products are being used to cut energy. Ground source heat pumps, biomass boilers, photo-voltaics and even wind power are all being considered routinely by developers, and increasingly in the future these products will be used because of the feed-in
tariff.

This is borne out in a recently published RICS report Why do companies rent green?' which says CSR-conscious firms are leasing environmentally-labelled office space and will even pay a premium for such space. A range of businesses in environmentally sensitive industries such as oil, mining and manufacturing, and legal and financial businesses are major consumers of green office space. Government offices, of course, have to set an example. Other businesses prefer green office space because it is recognised as being of higher quality, so they get the best of both worlds.

At the same time our Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme will drive larger companies to reduce their carbon footprint, which should result in consultants selecting high efficiency equipment, and increased demand in the contracting sector.

I have often talked about the rapid change of legislation from the planning perspective and this year will see the introduction of revised Building Regulations, Part F, Means of Ventilation, Part G on Sanitation, Water Safety and Water Efficiency, and, critically, Part L, Conservation of Fuel and Power.

With regard to our existing building stock, the majority of commercial refurbishment projects will require some 'consequential improvements' under Part L of the Building Regulations, opening the door to wider use of low or zero carbon technologies such as solar thermal and air or ground source heat pumps.

More importantly, the need to consider energy efficiency itself as a 'renewable', insofar as improving the efficiency of the building fabric can make a huge difference to its heating and cooling loads.

Better thermal insulation minimises the capacity of heating plant.
Our New Year resolutions should therefore include:

· Saving energy in our back yards, our own companies
· Producing new and innovative services and products
· Aiding clients to save energy
· Creating more sustainable, productive, comfortable
environments
· Learning more about sustainability and stocking up our knowledge base

The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan plots how the UK will meet the 34% cut in emissions on 1990 levels by 2020. It is the most systematic response to climate change of any major developed economy, but it is a response that we can gain from by innovation and commitment to change.