The Importance & Mystery of MEES & Energy Performance Certificates

This is fascinating and highlights the issues and importance surrounding MEES and EPCs.

The link between a poor Energy Performance Certificate rating and energy bills has always been there, but because of the Commercial EPC's metric being carbon-based and not financially-based, a better EPC rating will highlight how its carbon emissions are lower (i.e. uses electricity for heating purposes), but not necessarily that it will cost less to run (electricity being at least 6-7x more expensive than grid-connected gas).

That aside, the Government are STILL pontificating around the future of the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) for commercial buildings. Back in 2021 the proposal was to increase the minimum standard (currently EPC band 'E') to 'C' by 2027. This is still up in the air and in all certainty is not going to be enforced. What will almost certainly happen is that they will stick to the original goal of achieving 'B' by 2030, bypassing the 'C' milestone completely.

On the surface the 'C' milestone was simply that, a marker before the really tough standard came in. However it would have been nice if this had been advertised a while ago, rather than catching property developers, estate managers and landlords, who have been eagerly awaiting for an announcement since 2021, on the back foot and now will be a mad rush - do they attempt to improve their existing stock to 'B' or simply get rid? The problem there is who would take any failing stock on? 

London-based offices like this may struggle to reach EPC 'B' by 2030

Concerningly, fewer 'A+', 'A' & 'B' EPCs were registered in 2025 than in the previous two years. Is this because building regulations are getting tighter? Possibly, a recent uplift has made making new buildings in particular harder to reach such levels and achieve Part L as well, whilst attempting to retrofit existing buildings to these levels, especially A or higher, is nigh-on impossible. This in turn makes the delay surrounding PAS 2038 Retrofit qualifications even more frustrating, especially considering how successful it's domestic cousin, PAS 2035, has been.

Currently 80% of all commercial buildings in England have an EPC below 'B'...that's a hell of a lot. It's a hell of a lot of opportunity as well - installers of low carbon tech and energy efficiency measures (insulation, electric-based heating, solar etc) could be incredibly busy over the coming years, as will energy assessors like ourselves verifying all of this, as well as advising clients how to improve their EPC rating to reach MEES.