FUTURENOUGHTS
RETROFITTING HOMES TO ACCELERATE NET ZERO TRANSITION
Ellie Nathan, Net Zero Innovation Project Manager, Three Rivers District Council
Retrofitting is the practice of improving the energy efficiency of an existing home to reduce its carbon footprint.
Three Rivers District Council, the National Energy Foundation (NEF) and Grand Union Community Energy (GUCE) were awarded Fast Followers funding to deliver five projects all centred on accelerating retrofit in the district.
The projects seek to overcome various non-technical barriers to retrofit the Council’s own buildings and the district’s buildings. These barriers include finance and governance, skills and capacity gaps, knowledge barriers, and behavioural change.
The projects are:
- Working with GUCE to pilot community-funded renewable energy for non-domestic buildings in Three Rivers.
- Working with GUCE to trial the delivery of the Transition Streets programme in Three Rivers; a community-led approach to street-level carbon emissions reductions, which focuses on personal connections between neighbours and uses financial savings as the driver of change.
The first Transitions Streets group in Three Rivers discussing their energy use at home
- Working with the NEF to pilot a Retrofit One Stop Shop service offering residents independent, tailored advice and end-to-end support to enable high-quality domestic retrofits. The pilot service is targeting homeowners who have the means to self-fund energy efficiency improvements and are living in properties with “hard to treat” characteristics.
The first Superhomes Three Rivers website for the Retrofit One Stop Shop service.
- Employing an independent consultant to identify, appraise, and recommend finance options to support the decarbonisation of the Council’s estate.
- Supporting the growth and development of the local retrofit supply chain.
It’s thrilling to work on such a diverse mix of projects all aimed at delivering tangible emissions reductions, accelerating renewable energy generation, and embracing sustainability. “
We hope that by the end of the programme, we will have:
- Installed community-funded renewable energy on a community building or site in Three Rivers and developed a plan to grow Community Energy Groups in our region.
- Evaluated the effectiveness of a hyper-local, holistic approach to sustainable behavioural change, and if effective, developed a plan to scale the initiative.
- Understood the key barriers to retrofit for residents. Designed an independent support service to help residents overcome these barriers, with funding to scale the service identified.
- Presented the route to funding the retrofit of Council-owned buildings to achieve net-zero by 2030 to senior Officers and Members as well as gaining approval of the proposal.
- Strengthened connections with the local retrofit supply chain and stakeholders, supported local SMEs to upskill to retrofit-related roles, and demonstrated the opportunity of “able to pay” domestic retrofit via the Retrofit One Stop Shop.
I’m eager to see how Transition Streets can empower communities to act on the climate and ecological crises we face at grassroots level and convert conversations between friends and neighbours into meaningful action.
I hope to share and gain valuable insights with fellow cohort members, and enhance my project management, strategic planning, and stakeholder engagement skills through the Future Ready programme.