Housing Corporation News Release

Tuesday 10 June 2008       Ref: 40/08

Environmental retrofit manual to tackle household CO₂ emissions launched
- 8m energy efficient light bulbs offer announced for 2 million housing association households

Housing Minister Iain Wright today (Tuesday 10 June) launched a guide to tackling environmental emissions currently generated by households. He also announced that eight million Osram energy efficient light bulbs would be given out to housing association households over a 12-month period beginning in September 2008.

Greening the UK's 27 million existing households, which produce more than a quarter of all UK carbon emissions, is essential if the Government is to meet its target of reducing carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. Yet, until now, no definitive guidance on how to do this has been produced.

The light bulb scheme, an initiative put together by EDF Energy*, eaga** and the Housing Corporation, aims to reduce the electricity bills of the two million housing association households who might be vulnerable to fuel poverty and is expected to save 1.14 million tonnes of CO₂ over a 10-year period - enough to fill over 230,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Each household will receive four light bulbs of various wattages with lifetimes of ten times longer (10,000 hours) than regular bulbs (1,000) and they will use 80% less energy than a standard one.

The initiative is part of the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT), and by focusing on housing association households, ensures that it is reaching CERT's priority groups of lower income and older households.

The publication, Fit For the Future – The Green Homes Retrofit Manual, published by the Housing Corporation and written by ESD***, has been extensively peer reviewed and puts together essential information for any retrofit work to households being conducted in the UK.

Fit For the Future has been put designed for social landlords from housing associations and local authorities who are responsible for five million homes throughout the country representing over one-fifth of all households.

Housing Minister Iain Wright said of the Fit For the Future manual: “One of the biggest challenges facing this country is tackling climate change, and with homes accounting for around a quarter of carbon emissions in this country it’s clear we all have to work harder to reduce this. 

“The government is committed to improving household energy efficiency and reducing emissions in both existing stock and new build housing.  This includes measures such as encouraging the fitting of energy saving features for existing homes, and tightening the building regulations to make all new build homes lower carbon, and zero carbon by 2016.

“But we also need people to take the practical measures which reduce their carbon emissions.  This is why I welcome the publication today of this manual which will provide information to help and encourage social landlords to make their housing stock greener, as well as the initiative to provide energy efficient light bulbs to millions of housing association households.”

Deputy Chair of the Housing Corporation Board Shaukat Moledina said of the Fit For the Future manual: “Fit For the Future has been designed to provide housing associations and local authorities with a clear, concise, reference manual. It allows them to make the best choices and develop the most effective strategy when it comes to 'greening' their existing stock. I believe this document will have a lasting impact on the sector, allowing for a more informed, customisable approach to environmental provision and retrofitting of social housing.”

EDF Energy Head of Energy Efficiency Richard Sykes said of the light bulb initiative:

“We are delighted to be donating eight million energy saving light bulbs to the Housing Corporation. This support complements the newly launched Fit for the Future manual and our own Climate Commitments, first announced in June 2007, in which we stated that we wish to reduce the proportion of CO₂ arising from our customers’ energy consumption by 15% by 2020. These commitments also highlighted other business-wide actions to combat the effects of climate change. In developing ways of maintaining profitability while encouraging its customers to use less energy, EDF Energy is making a fundamental change in its whole approach to energy and energy services.”

eaga Commercial Manager Yashin Sarnaik said of the light bulb initiative: "As one of the largest providers of domestic energy efficiency solutions in Europe, eaga is delighted to be supporting this initiative. Household energy accounts for more than a quarter of all UK carbon emissions, so by making our homes more energy efficient we really can make a significant contribution to tackling climate change. Fitting CFLs is obviously just a part of this, but it is an increasingly important part. If you also consider the rising cost of energy, just lighting a house can account for up to 20% of electricity bills. Replacing standard light bulbs with the more efficient CFLs can reduce energy use by more than 25% in heavily used rooms." 

Ends

For further information:

Terry Sefton, Housing Corporation Press Office: 020 7393 2118.

Oliver Whitney-Coates, Communities and Local Government Press Office: 020 7944 8331.

Richard Robinson, EDF Energy Press office: 020 7752 2266.

Rik Kendall, eaga Media Relations Manager: 0191 245 8342.

Editor notes:

1. The light bulbs will be delivered to housing association households over a 12-month period beginning from September 2008.

2. The Housing Corporation is the Government's national affordable homes agency, responsible for investing in new affordable homes and regulating nearly 2,000 housing associations who provide some two million homes across England.

3. The Corporation's £8 billion investment programme for 2008-11 is its biggest ever, set to fund at least 155,000 homes.  Over 100,000 of these are for affordable rent and more than 50,000 for affordable sale through the Government's HomeBuy initiatives, helping people get a foot on the property ladder.

4. The Housing Corporation is working with Communities and Local Government and English Partnerships to establish the proposed Homes and Communities Agency and proposed social housing regulator.

5. Further information: Fit For the Future – The Green Homes Retrofit Manual

Fit for the Future deals with greening England's existing stock of affordable housing, a subject high on the Government's agenda. The Corporation is conscious that there is a lot of mistaken and misleading information available to Housing Associations as they move to fulfil the government's aspirations in this area. To ensure that Housing Associations have the maximum amount of accurate information available to them in one place should ensure that more affordable homes are brought up to a decent ecological standard, making the investment of Housing Associations go further.

The immediate effect of the manual will be to emphasise the importance of the environmental performance of housing association and local authority stock, and to inform Housing Associations of what me assures they can take. We expect that it will result in more environmentally efficient maintenance activity, as housing associations implement the immediate actions the manual identifies and in the long term, it will help associations to adopt environmental strategies, and work towards reducing fuel poverty among their tenants

*6. EDF Energy is one of the UK’s largest energy companies. We provide power to a quarter of the UK’s population via our electricity distribution networks in London, the South East and the East of England. We supply gas and electricity to over 5 million customers and generate about 5GW of energy from our coal and gas power stations, as well as combined heat and power plants and wind farms. The company is also a key player in national infrastructure projects including management of private electricity networks serving four London airports and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the country’s first major new railway in 100 years. EDF Energy employs nearly 13,000 people at locations across the UK. Through our Climate and Social Commitments, EDF Energy has the biggest environmental and social packages of any UK company. EDF Energy is core part of EDF group, one of Europe’s largest power companies. EDF is the official energy utilities partner and a sustainability partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

**7. eaga: As the leading Green Support Services sector company eaga specialises in providing residential energy efficiency solutions to environmental, energy efficiency and social inclusion challenges. eaga works with governments – primarily on grant-funded programmes aimed at tackling fuel poverty - local authorities, social housing providers and utility companies. Its residential energy efficiency solutions are designed to lower carbon emissions and advance social and environmental justice by combating fuel poverty, improving living conditions and reducing energy consumption.

On average, eaga’s energy efficiency activities will reduce annual C02 emissions from a typical family home by around 1.3 tonnes.

***8. ESD was established in 1989 and since then has helped to define policies and implement projects to help mitigate climate change. We provide consultancy services and also develop our own projects and joint ventures.

9. Other speakers at the launch included:

i) Shaukat Moledina

Shaukat is the Deputy Chairman of the Housing Corporation Board.

Shaukat was, until recently, the major shareholder and Chairman of a successful start-up national group of companies which he formed to provide Healthcare services. The Group subsequently diversified and expanded its activities to include the provision of specialised management support to Financial Institutions, working at Board-level to advise and implement major change strategies and business turnarounds.

Currently he is Vice President of United Response, a leading charity engaged in the provision of care services to individuals with learning disabilities, as well as a trustee and main Board Member of Save the Children.

Previous government appointments include serving on the Board of the NCSC, an NHS Trust, and as a special trustee to the St Mary's Hospital NHS Trust in London. In addition, he has served on the Boards of Housing Associations, was the Chairman of Barnsley Council Inspection Advisory Committee, and a member of York University's Advisory Board with the College of Health Studies.

ii) Dr Brenda Boardman

Dr Brenda Boardman MBE heads the Lower Carbon Futures team at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI). She is Associate Director of the ESRC’s UK Energy and Resources Centre (UKERC) where she leads the Demand Reduction theme. She recently took part in an experiment as part of “The Real Cost of Going Green”, a special edition of BBC2’s The Money Programme. As a result of her advice, one family, the Hutchinsons, were able to cut their energy consumption by half.

iii) Iain Wright MP

Iain Wright was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in June 2007.

Important aspects of Iain’s work include:

Providing support on all aspects of housing policy and programmes and town and country planning, physical and housing-related regeneration including decent homes, housing market renewal, and homelessness Housing and Regeneration Bill Support on urban policy and urban design; the code for sustainable homes; building regulations Climate change and sustainable development

iv) Peter Walls

Peter Walls is the CEO of Gentoo Group, a social housing company that was formerly the Sunderland Housing Group.

The Sunday Times Green List honoured social housing firm Gentoo – formerly Sunderland Housing Group – as the fifth best green company in the North

The company is just one year into its journey towards becoming more environmentally sustainable.