Project Overview

Improving the energy efficiency of our existing housing stock is one of the most cost-effective ways to cut emissions. Four in five homes in the UK are privately owned, but so far no-one has succeeded in delivering large-scale projects to retrofit these efficiently or effectively. The Government’s Green Deal is designed to do this but has many challenges to overcome.

Refit West is a pioneering scheme which has helped private homeowners reduce the energy and resource consumption of their homes. Forum for the Future has developed a practical model to retrofit whole houses that can be rolled out nationwide.

Our report ‘Update form the front line: real homeowner retrofit journeys and barrier to Green Deal must overcome’ shares our experience and insights of the customer journey, highlighting areas that need to be addressed by the Government’s scheme.

We have been working on a pilot project with a small number of pioneers in Bristol and the West of England as part of our work to make it the most sustainable city-region in the UK. These homeowners live in different types of housing and are all committed to increasing the energy efficiency of their properties. And we have been using this experience to help the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Energy Saving Trust develop a large-scale energy efficiency scheme for private homeowners.

This work is essential if we are to meet national carbon reduction targets. Latest figures show our homes generate 27% (146 Mt) of the UK’s total carbon emissions (533 Mt). But residential carbon emissions have only fallen by 6% since 1990.

Putting people first

Our approach begins and ends with the homeowner: providing information on the most appropriate and cost-effective options for their property in response to their personal motivations; designing solutions to meet their needs; ensuring suppliers give them quality and value for their money; and working to build trust and confidence in this emerging market. Along-side Refit West we have been working to develop innovative financial mechanisms to enable homeowners to access and invest the required capital costs of retrofitting any home for energy efficiency.

It’s about empowering and supporting individuals as they make decisions and commission works to their homes. We believe a flexible and people-centred approach, delivering a positive experience for early adopters, is the only way to radically transform our property market and housing stock.

To do this at scale will require a broad view which takes account of three key elements: providing appropriate financial incentives to refit houses; creating demand from homeowners; and ensuring there is a workforce with the skills to carry it out.

Forum for the Future aims to:

• support the large-scale delivery of energy and resource efficiency works to owner-occupied homes;
• create a replicable model for delivery and a financial mechanism that can support this large-scale refurbishment of the UK’s existing housing stock;
• increase the demand for energy efficiency works by homeowners;
• support the development of supply chains capable of providing high quality goods and services, e.g. technologies and skills to reduce the energy and resource demand from the UK’s existing housing stock;
• provide learning to help other government initiatives in this area to radically scale up their activities.

As part of this project we worked with the Energy Saving Trust to carry out detailed technical analysis on a number of properties. This resulted in detailed case studies for three properties. We used and compared the outputs from the SAP 2005 and SAP 2009, and where possible comparing these modelling tools with actual energy data. The total project costs are included but not broken down by measure.

To download the report and flyer, go to the left hand banner. 

A recording of the webinar held by Ben Ross and Refit West homeowner Chris Priest on 25th March is now available on the 2degreesnetwork website for registered members of 2degrees.

You may also be interested in our Climate Finance project and the Sustainable Bristol Programme, as well as the Green Futures special edition ‘Retro and Fit: Taking energy efficiency in buildings to scale’.

Links

Cost of retrofit could be 10 times that of Green Deal - GreenWise Business