January - a time to shake your head a bit, relish the fresh chill in the mornings, and try to clear the festive hangover; whilst you're at it what happened last year apart from the media frenzy?

Well, we saw politicians paint their faces green and bellow their war chants, then very quickly reassure businesses that life was to carry on as usual; we saw tears; we were presented with numbers - targets which would require a maths degree to understand. We have carbon reduction targets, staggered over timescales, with unspecific responsibilities; we missed targets, we moved goal posts and overall we consumed more energy, more resources and bought new appliances.

Britain claims now to be at the forefront of the eco movement - which hasn't apparently reached the ears of our friends at BAA, to name but one group. And - simply because I have free reign to say to those who tell me the free market always triumphs and will solve our eco issues - we individually were taxed a lot to bail out a bank (although I was delighted to see the quote from one customer who said "...to tell you the truth I rather like queuing...", bully for him and Britain).

However one target stands out, in my mind at least - ZERO CARBON housing by 2016. This is an easy target to remember. I understand I (we) need to aspire towards ZERO, a difficult number to confuse with any other number, and by a specific date. It is clear in principle. Whilst the technical argument is as yet unresolved we know what to aim for, and strive we will - the British can be remarkably dogged in their aspirations, but are unlikely to relish indecisiveness, with this target we can get on with doing our best.

So what will 2008 hold in store for us? Well I work in the property industry so I'm afraid my interests are slightly skewed towards our built environment, and to date the political rhetoric has been towards new buildings (it makes sense not to make new sub-standard buildings we will need to improve at a later date), but this year we will turn our attention towards the existing stock (according to a friend of a friends friend).

This is not ground breaking thinking or news, ask any self-respecting eco-warrior what has a greater impact on say energy use, and the 1% increase in building stock with all it's associated construction requirements, pales into the shadow of the existing properties and their energy use and wastage. But this is a difficult bullet to bite, if every existing building needs to be improved, do we all need to take action?

The question can be applied in a number of ways:
Do we all need to take action .... to address the problem of poor energy use, for example?
YES, no question, anyone with responsibility for or use of a building needs to take responsibility, it is the only way we can address this problem.

Do we all need to take action .... to fall in line with new standards and government initiatives?
To be determined, I think, and perhaps this year we will see what the battered consensus will emerge as. Expect a lot of tired arguments and case studies of poor outcomes to hit the headlines over and over again, followed by a watered-down overly criticised policy of some description.

So whilst we watch the scrapping from a distance, how do we keep a step ahead of the game? There are pros and cons to almost any line of action - will demand out balance the economies of scale in the long run and result in cheaper solutions, undoubtedly in some cases, but how long will it take? Will the industry be able to meet the requirements, are there enough trained professionals to offer the services, do they sing from the same song sheet? Will an answer to one problem be an exacerbation of another? It's almost as bad as being a teenager again. But the point is we are not, and if we cannot take responsibility ourselves what hope is there!

As you no doubt have guessed I'm here to advocate getting on with the job. Any particularly persuasive carrots for you? Well I'm not so sure that joe blogs will triumph when it comes to grants and incentives in the future, that's not to say we won't get them, but the cost could be astronomical, so if we do they'll no doubt be a long way off, and possibly not as much as is on offer to individual projects now. So whilst there are grants for energy saving, for home improvements, and whilst there is free advice available - go and get it. It's almost Easter, so you'd be as well to start planning your DIY now right?!