Designing with zero energy in mind All new housing must be ‘carbon neutral’ by 2016 but so far developers and the buying public have shown little enthusiasm for paying the extra costs involved or accepting a different approach to design. Although the target of achieving carbon neutrality is clear and unequivocal, the means of achieving it are constantly changing, as measures that were thought to be impossibly uneconomic only a very few years ago suddenly become necessities. The problem for designers is to produce design solutions for homes that have to be adaptable enough – future proofed – to accommodate the changes that are bound to occur between now and 2016, and beyond. This is not made any easier by the technical experts and manufacturers, among whom there is only a certain measure of agreement on the best ways forward.