Size matters: House size and thermal efficiency as policy strategies to reduce net emissions of new developments

► House size impacts on heating and cooling energy loads. ► Increases in house sizes decrease the effectiveness of more stringent building codes. ► Victoria is forecast to dominate CO2-e emissions from new residential builds in Australia. ► Smaller houses and stringent building codes reduce new building CO2-e emissions significantly. ► Smaller houses provide an affordable means to meat progressive CO2-e reduction target.