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Chanctonbury Ring, West Sussex Jackdaws, ravens and hobbies dance in the sky, oblivious to tales of fairies and ghosts and ritual sacrifice

The morning sun shines through the canopy of the wood at the bottom of the hill, making the fallen leaves on the ground glow rust-red. The steep chalk and grey mud track is greasy from last night’s rain. Either side, flocks of tits – blue, great, coal and long-tailed – flit about, and wrens heckle my laboured climb with loud alarm calls.

At the top of the hill, the strong, cold wind is shaking the trees, some already stripped skeletal-bare. Emerging into the open, I turn on to the South Downs Way and follow the path through a gate, over a cattle grid. The soft contour of the hilltop sweeps up to the early iron age fort, hidden by a cap of dark trees.

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South Australia opposition promises $100m in grants to help homes to buy and install battery storage in lead-up to state election.

AEMO says shift to renewables is going to happen anyway, particularly as consumers turn to solar and storage. Might as well get some policies to deal with it.

Green groups slam NAIF approval of $16.8m loan for oil and gas port facility in Onslow WA – say it show's fund's true colours (hint: not green).

Scott Pruitt's decision to repeal the Clean Power Plan would make it tough for U.S. to fulfill the Paris Climate Agreement.

Carnegie Clean Energy secures $7.5m construction debt finance facility for 10MW Northam solar farm in WA.

Elecnor wins planning approval for 50MW extension to Queensland's first big solar farm, selling into merchant market and contemplating storage.

Black carbon trapped in the feathers of songbirds gives new insight into historic US air quality.

Key modifications for flight happened as early as 120 million years ago, a fossil discovery suggests.

British Antarctic Survey researchers will study area opened up by loss of iceberg A68, which has been hidden for up to 120,000 years

A team of scientists is planning an expedition to examine the marine ecosystem revealed when an enormous iceberg broke off the Larsen C ice shelf earlier this year.

In July, the iceberg known as A68 broke off the shelf, leaving the area at its lowest recorded extent. Researchers are now hoping the event may lead to novel revelations from their investigations of the area opened up, which had been hidden under ice for up to 120,000 years.

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Home buyers across Australia could face higher energy bills because of a loophole that allows builders to sidestep energy efficiency requirements.

Since the early 2000s, all new homes built in Australia have to meet minimum thermal performance standards. In about 70% of cases, these homes are accredited using star ratings under the federal government’s Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS). Most new houses have to meet a minimum 6-star rating. The higher the rating, the more energy-efficient the home.

Besides the star rating system, there are three other ways to meet the thermal efficiency standards, including one known as Verification Using a Reference Building (VURB),, which awards a pass or fail rather than stars. It was designed to allow houses with alternative building techniques to comply with the standards.

But some builders are using this approach to accredit houses that fall well short of the 6-star standard under the NatHERS system – a tactic that is legal under the current system.

One consulting engineering firm, Structerre, which is active in Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, has advertised that it has saved builders thousands by adopting the pass/fail approach under VURB. Structerre declined to comment for this article.

A Structerre advertisement showing how a double storey residential building originally rated 4.5 stars using NatHERS and using the VURB pathway was able to meet energy compliance without adding cavity insulation or upgraded glazing. Structerre website

By using VURB, builders can forego installing items that would ordinarily be needed to gain a minimum 6-star rating, such as cavity insulation or upgraded glazing.

Upgrading a home from a 4.5-star rating to 6 stars can typically cost tens of thousands of dollars. It is even more expensive for double-storey homes on narrow blocks with sub-optimal orientation.

Energy uncertainty

It is hard to say exactly how much higher energy bills would be in a home that falls below 6-star standard, because of the many other factors that influence bills. But major Australian house builder BGC Residential estimates that people with a 4-star or 5-star rated home could pay about 30% more than people living in a 6-star home.

A CSIRO study of more than 400 Australian houses built in the past 10 years found that higher-rated homes saved significantly on winter heating costs.

However, a study of 10 homes in Perth found significant variation in energy use between homes with the same rating.

The picture is complicated further by a phenomenon known as the takeback effect, in which some people in energy-efficient homes actually increase their energy consumption.

Misleading standards

Michael Bartier, executive general manager of BCG Residential, one of the first companies to adopt NatHERS 6-star rating as a standard building practice, said the use of loopholes could harm the industry’s reputation and cost buyers money.

“My concern is that there are a large number of homes built in the past 12-18 months that have not achieved the NatHERS 6-star rating, without the owners’ or customers’ knowledge. These homes could be rated as low as 2.7 stars and suffering poor thermal performance, costing the owners significantly more in heating and cooling energy costs and affecting final resale value,” he said.

While universal certificates are generated for homes found to comply with NatHERS, making them easier to track, it’s hard to tell how many homes have been signed off with VURB, as recording is not mandatory for those homes.

Some industry insiders are concerned that, without public scrutiny, the use of this loophole will increase.

A better picture

CSIRO, which owns the software used for NatHERS ratings, has developed a database of new homes’ energy ratings across Australia.

It currently has data for most homes built since May 2016, and is aiming to make its data available to the public. Some preliminary data are shown in the map below.

Average star rating for homes built since May 2016, in a selection of Australian climate zones. It does not show all homes, and in particular does not show homes that met compliance using the VURB pathway. Data courtesy of CSIRO.

Click on the zones to see the average star ratings.

There are more drawbacks besides the potential impact on energy bills. The National Construction Code states that home thermal efficiency standards are also important for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2013, Australia’s residential and commercial buildings were responsible for almost a quarter of the nation’s greenhouse emissions.

Several groups have warned about the use of the VURB pathway, including CSIRO, state governments, and the federal Department of the Environment and Energy. But it is unclear whether these warnings will catch the eye of home buyers.

The Australian Building Codes Board is reviewing the system (it is open for public comment until February 2018), and plans to “strengthen the technical provisions” in the 2019 version of the National Construction Code.

Saskia Pickles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Exclusive: Company pledges products will be free from ingredients tainted with controversial herbicide after survey found traces in its European ice-creams

Ben & Jerry’s has moved to cut all glyphosate-tainted ingredients from its production chain and introduce an “organic dairy” line next year, after a new survey found widespread traces of the controversial substance in its European ice-creams.

The dramatic initiative follows a new survey by Health Research Institute (HRI) laboratories which found traces of the weedkiller in 13 out of 14 B&J tubs sampled in the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

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• Scott Pruitt says he will sign rule withdrawing policy on Tuesday
• Plan imposed restrictions on emissions from coal-fired power stations

The Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, confirmed on Monday that the Trump administration will abandon the Obama-era clean power plan aimed at reducing global warming.

Related: Trump EPA plan will roll back Obama standards on power plant emissions

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UK scientists will take a ship to explore waters exposed by a huge new iceberg in the Antarctic.

New EU rules that allow car firms to keep their emissions control systems secret from the public risk another dieselgate and should be made illegal, say environmental lawyers

New EU rules that allow car manufacturers to keep pollution control systems secret from the public should be declared illegal, according to environmental lawyers.

The systems can legally cut emissions controls under certain conditions on the road, meaning more pollution is produced. But keeping these strategies secret risks another “dieselgate” scandal, according to ClientEarth lawyers, who announced on Monday that they are seeking to challenge the regulation in the European Union’s court of justice.

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Facility run by E.ON, to be followed by many more, will help UK grid cope with fast-growing amount of renewable energy

One of the first of a new fleet of industrial-scale battery plants will come online in Sheffield this week to help the grid cope with the rapidly-growing amount of renewable power.

E.ON said the facility, which is next to an existing power plant and has the equivalent capacity of half a million phone batteries, marked a milestone in its efforts to develop storage for power from wind farms, nuclear reactors and gas power stations.

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Coal can no longer compete in the free market, so the Trump administration wants to prop it up with taxpayer subsidies

The conservative philosophy of allowing an unregulated free market to operate unfettered often seems to fall by the wayside when the Republican Party’s industry allies are failing to compete in the marketplace. Trump’s Energy Secretary Rick Perry recently provided a stark example of this philosophical flexibility when he proposed to effectively pull the failing coal industry out of the marketplace and instead prop it up with taxpayer-funded subsidies.

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Ever wondered if cows bore a grudge? This may be the book for you

This meditative little book isn’t new: it came out first in 2003, when it was published by a small farming press. But then a beady-eyed editor at Faber noticed Alan Bennett had praised it in his diary (“it alters the way one looks at the world”, he wrote in an entry on 24 August 2006), with the result that it has now been republished. Its author, Rosamund Young, who lives and works at Kite’s Nest, an organic farm on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment, must be thrilled – or maybe not. Having read her book, which is very sensible but also somewhat dreamy and a bit obsessive, she strikes me as the kind of woman who would rather be standing in a muddy field in her wellies than listening to some eager townie praise her for her wisdom.

Young’s parents began farming in 1953, when she was 12 days old and her brother (with whom she and her husband still run Kite’s Nest) was nearly three; she continues their tradition of treating animals as individuals with varied personalities, rather than as identical members of herds. The Secret Life of Cows, then, is essentially a collection of anecdotes about the many beasts she has hand-reared down the years: bovines, mostly, though there are a few stories about sheep and chickens, too. In a way, it’s like a book for children. Every animal has a name – Araminta, Black Hat, Dorothy – not to mention parents, brothers and sisters. Most have adventures, albeit not massively exciting ones; Young refers casually to their “conversations”, as if cows chat just like humans. After a while, though, you get used to all this, and as a consequence the world does indeed tilt. Or bits of it, at least. This book will change forever the way you see a field of ayrshires or friesians.

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Our readers on their most cherished cycling routes, from remote Scottish islands to Japanese mountain ranges

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Dolebury Warren, Somerset In an iron age hill fort once ruled by rabbits, waxcaps speckle the ground with luminous colour

This shapely hill has steep sides, the sheep-walked turf trodden into neat pleats along the contours. On the ridge, upstanding stony ribs encircle a heart of deeper soil – the iron age hill fort, the Dolebury. In medieval times, when rabbits were tender creatures, a protective warren was built up here, completing the modern name for the place. Nowadays the rabbits look after themselves and the place is often deserted, especially on a ditchwater-dull day like this.

We had come to hunt waxcaps, glistening mushrooms in parrot shades of red, orange, yellow and green. In this peaceful soil their mycelium spreads undisturbed beneath thyme and tormentil (Potentilla erecta). We have been here before, quartering their favourite corners, luckless, only to look back and see them hiding behind a tussock, shining as brightly as lights on a Christmas tree.

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