Recommendations by the influential Committee on Climate Change that tests to monitor the energy efficiency of newly-built homes be greatly simplified could change the culture of housebuilding in the UK at a stroke, according to industry figures.

The CCC, headed by Lord Deben – the former Conservative environment secretary John Selwyn-Gummer – recommended amending building regulations so that instead complicated theoretical calculations using the Building Research Establishment’s SAP software being used to determine a building’s compliance, a system be used that measures the actual energy performance of homes once they are built.