Affinity Sutton pledge £1.2M for retrofitting

Futurefit – Affinity Sutton pledges £1.2M to find green retrofitting solution

Affinity Sutton has announced it will spend £1.2M refurbishing 102 of its homes as part of a two year project to test practical approaches to making social housing more energy efficient.

The Futurefit project will be rolled out across the country and focus on a range of common property types with the aim of improving energy efficiency and developing practical solutions to meet the massive cost of reducing carbon emissions from existing homes. This is the first project to look at every aspect of the carbon challenge from finance, to how we can work with our existing contractors, to skills and supply chains, and how to engage residents in the retrofit agenda.

The cost of retrofitting England’s housing stock to deliver a drop in carbon emissions of at least 80 per cent by 2050 has been estimated at around £500 billion. 

Futurefit  aims to establish what can be achieved using three different  household budgets  already publicised in the retrofit debate – the £6,500 pledged for household improvements under the Conservative Party’s Green Deal, the £10,000 proposed in the Labour Party’s pay-as-you-save scheme and the £25,000 widely accepted in the housing sector as a realistic figure for whole-house retrofit.

All of the measures used in each retrofit will be monitored and evaluated to establish their success, assess the impact of lifestyle on their effectiveness and the value for money of each measure.   

The initial findings of the project will be published in a report in May 2012.

The UK Climate Change Act seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. It is estimated around 80 per cent of the houses we’ll be living in by 2050 have already been built. So it is critical that the affordable housing providers look at ways to dramatically improve the performance of our existing housing stock.

Futurefit is a key part of Affinity Sutton’s newly adopted environmental strategy, which has been developed following the appointment earlier this year of a dedicated Environmental Sustainability Manager.  The project will be launched to coincide with the publication of its environmental strategy and the affordable housing provider’s national Green Week initiative.  The environmental strategy will provide a focus for improving the business’ environmental performance, from its office operations to engaging its customers on green issues through innovative projects.

Jeremy Kape, Director of Property Investment, for Affinity Sutton, said:  “Futurefit is an ambitious project that pushes at the boundaries of current knowledge and understanding both within Affinity Sutton and across the sector.  This is the first time an affordable housing provider has undertaken a hands-on assessment of the practicalities of large scale retrofit and the findings of Futurefit will hopefully provide a blueprint for what is achievable and affordable for the sector.”