In collaboration with leading thinkers and practitioners from across the sustainable housing sector, The Sustainable Housing Action Partnership (SHAP) has developed Retrofit – a system change proposal to the government, calling on the government to take action.
According to the UK Green Building Council, “to achieve net zero carbon by 2050, we will need to improve almost all the UK’s 29 million homes, meaning we need to retrofit more than 1.8 homes every minute between now and 2050. Accelerating action on domestic home retrofit can also support more than 150,000 skilled and semi-skilled construction jobs to 2030*. Yet, the government’s Environmental Audit Committee has stated that “government investment to improve energy efficiency has been woefully inadequate and there appears to be no plan nor meaningful delivery” **.
The proposal, developed by a diverse group of housing sector leaders in retrofit, reflects the systemic challenges that need to be addressed for retrofit to be rolled out at scale and pace if the country is to realise its net zero ambitions and build solutions to the cost-of living crisis. The importance of retrofit to ensure the country and the West Midlands region is resilient in the face of the cost-of-living crisis was reflected in a statement recently released by Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands***
SHAP says its members (including local authorities, housing providers and supply chain businesses) feel the current approach to domestic retrofit is flawed, with challenges around funding, long-term pipeline, skills and regulation that make delivery of retrofit fragmented and inefficient. The proposal calls for the government to take 6 key actions to overcome the largest hurdles the sector is facing:
- Designate housing as critical infrastructure in national and local policy: and commit to outcomes rather than outputs as appraisal measures.
- Confirm a minimum 10-year capital funding commitment: allowing the supply chain to innovate, invest in the market and prepare for consistent, stable growth.
- Allocate 3 – 5-year revenue funding: to create the necessary teams to start building long-term programmes and ensure ‘levelling up’ by not leaving housing stockholders behind.
- Establish national coordination and local collaboration: provide a consistent national framework (including digital tools, data management, access, skills and training), for adoption to deliver at a local level.
- Initiate and sustain a national home retrofit communications campaign: to stimulate demand and supply across the country.
- Introduce and evaluate short-term regulatory changes: to reduce barriers and catalyse progress to a fully functioning retrofit system.
Ellie Horwitch-Smith, Chair of the SHAP board and Assistant Director, Route to Net Zero Carbon for Birmingham City Council, said,
“With the cost of living and climate crises, a new approach to the retrofit industry is required, building on what has already been done and creating affordable to run, comfortable, healthy, low-carbon homes - stimulating local business opportunities and local skills, training and jobs. This proposal reflects the knowledge and experience of our network, who are well placed to understand not only the challenges that exist with the current system but how they can be addressed to enable a vision of flourishing communities, warm homes and healthy people to be realised”.
View the full proposal here
***https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-street-66869b1a3/recent-activity/
^ https://shapuk.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/retrofit-a-system-change-proposal-to-government.pdf
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