Net Zero Carbon – starting our journey
By John Swinney, Sustainability Lead for Greener Herts.
The ‘net zero’ challenge facing housing landlords is quite frankly difficult to get your organisational head around. There are plenty of ideas, lots of enthusiasm, a real desire to do something… But what? And how?
The scale of what is required is such that most organisations are struggling to see how to get going. How do you package up change and improvement in a way that despite its scale is deliverable, builds momentum and is not so scary that it is easier to bury heads in the sand and hope someone – the government – will come to the rescue? While government funding will inevitably have to underpin a significant part of the bill, there seems little doubt that landlords are going to have to find a large chunk of the required money.
In reality achieving net zero is really just a massive construction project made up of thousands of mini initiatives and actions. It requires organisation and planning, extensive customer engagement and buy-in, expert teams and loads of money. Not much really!
So, how do we make things happen? A few early thoughts:
Focus – build on the strengths of your own organisation – develop a bespoke strategy.
Momentum – find the right starting place for you – it might be talking to your residents, exciting your staff or developing a series of pilot projects.
Innovation – experiment – explore ideas – don’t be limited in what you look at. Go for some pilot projects – review and learn the lessons.
Contain the challenge – make sure that your new build is not adding to the net zero gap
Tried and trusted – the debate around heating has not bottomed out – if you have limited resources prioritise fabric – your investment will have the maximum impact
Little things – target lots of small initiatives that on their own might not have much impact but together will make a difference. For example, getting electric car-ready.
Environment – plant trees!
Over the coming months we are going to share our experience. We will undoubtedly enjoy plenty of successes but we will also make mistakes. However, we are committed to sharing those mistakes as typically this is where we enjoy the most learning.
We will invite your ideas and try and involve as many of you as possible. We look forward to you joining us on our journey and sharing our learning.