Sustainable landlord of the year: winner

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1 Sustainable landlord of the year: winner Salix Homes: Salix Green Please provide a short summary of your approach or initiative Following a visit from Grant Shapps MP in January 2011, the Housing Minister announced that Salix Homes will trailblaze the Government s flagship sustainable housing initiative The Green Deal for social housing. This marked a key milestone in what had already, and continues to be, a long journey in Salix Homes goal to a holistic approach to sustainable housing and positioned the organisation as a leader in the field. Recognising that a truly environmentally sustainable approach does not simply focus on physical measures to inefficient homes, Salix Homes have combined cutting-edge energy efficiency technologies with qualified energy advisors, resident involvement and behavioural change initiatives, independent research and assessments, and training to staff and customers to create Salix Green. The Salix Green approach is currently providing customer focused retrofit measures to approximately 2,000 homes in Central Salford. As part of these improvements, Salix Homes works closely with affected residents to collect backdated energy bills to compare them with the bills post-retrofit. To compliment this, and to achieve long-lasting, sustainable outcomes, specially trained staff provide one-to-one support for residents to help them maximise the benefits of their improvements and encourage a change in how energy is used in the home. Under Salix Green, additional elements have been introduced to improve sustainability elsewhere. Over the last year Salix Homes have trained 60 front line officers to give basic energy advice when in contact with customers. A number of officers have also been trained NVQ level 3 in Energy Awareness to give Home Energy Audits. Why is your approach innovative and/or unique? The pioneering Salix Green approach is unique as it recognises the importance of energy advice and support in achieving environmental sustainability. Research has identified that behavioural change and energy advice can account for over 25% of domestic energy savings. Therefore, unlike other schemes, Salix Homes believes that the processes put in place to support customers are as important as the measures themselves. Salix Homes pilot retrofit scheme is a case in point and provided a model for future schemes. Working with residents, consultants ARUP and British Gas, Salix Homes collected backdated fuel bills and continued to for 12 months post-retrofit. This enabled them to produce a detailed Measuring Change

2 report, as well as demonstrate a Social Return on Investment. There are many retrofit projects that have been completed by social landlords, but they are rarely followed-up to create models for future works, nor do they quantify real change such as SROI and demonstrated savings. Salix Homes role as the Government s Green Deal trailblazer has also provided an opportunity to develop innovative models to demonstrate how the scheme can work for other social landlords. By combining the best practice from previous schemes and building on relationships with British Gas, Salix Homes have been able to develop a workable model using void properties that not only provide environmentally sustainable housing, but also give residents energy savings that will easily offset a rent premium. The scheme is now being piloted in properties across Salford with the first residents moving in in March What direct outcomes were achieved as a result of your approach? The direct outcomes of Salix Green cover many factors and justify Salix Homes holistic approach. One of the most impressive outcomes of the Salix Green approach has been the savings it has made to customers who live in some of the most deprived wards in the country, whilst dramatically improving the comfort of their home. One example is Salix Homes pilot project on the New Barracks estate. The recently published Measuring Change survey showed that customers have made an average annual saving of 353 on their gas bills. Work on the same estate also saw the average SAP rating rise from 46 to 72. On a scale of 1-7 residents also rated the thermal comfort of their homes after the work an average of an increase from 3.5 prior to the work. Salix Homes also manage a number of High Rise blocks, many of which are notoriously energy inefficient and expensive to heat and are now set to benefit drastically from the holistic retrofit approach. Eight of these blocks are currently having Eco-Pods installed to compliment a range of other energy efficiency improvements. These are set to replace inefficient storage heaters in five blocks and G-rated communal boilers in the remaining three. The Eco- Pod system is made up of a cascade of eight condensing boilers on the roof, a heat exchanger in each flat and a solar thermal array to supplement the boilers. When demand is high, the boilers are fired up automatically, to match demand (one if demand is low, more if demand increases). However, in the summer months, the solar thermal array is often adequate to provide the hot water demands for the entire building. The Eco Pod systems will save the residents 300 annually. Embedding a focus and awareness of energy efficiency issues across the organisation has been crucial to ensuring Salix Green is consistently delivered. 60 front-line staff have now completed basic energy awareness training enabling them to give energy efficiency advice to customers whether it is when a customer is having improvements work carried out, or simply if they call to order a repair. Furthermore, a number of staff are now trained to NVQ Level 3 in Energy Awareness and provide Home Energy Audits as part

3 of the capital works programme as well as on demand. This service proved vital during the winter period targeting the most vulnerable residents. To further embed a commitment to green housing, The Salix Green Board has been established, made up of customers, board members and staff to scrutinise and monitor the Green Strategy. A tenure blind approach has also lead to us securing Community Energy Saving Programme funding for 15 home-owners who live on Salix Homes neighbourhoods. This has helped them to externally insulate their hard to treat no-fines homes, improving the energy efficiency of their homes and the appearance of the estate. Please provide evidence to demonstrate the environmental impact of your approach or initiative Salix Homes have ensured that in order to demonstrate environmental sustainability, it not only has to show how the improvements provide savings to residents, but also how we are reducing Salford s carbon footprint. Due to the range of measures Salix Homes will have implemented by the end of 2012, it is estimated that lifetime carbon savings of 400,000 tonnes will be achieved. That s the equivalent to what an average car would emit if driven 43,531 times around the world! These include: 230,000 carbon tonnes saved through the retrofit schemes 30 carbon tonnes saved through the Green Deal pilot 3,270 carbon tonnes saved through the installation of Eco-pods in high rise blocks 300 carbon tonnes saved through improvements to 15 private homes. By the end of this year s programme, Salix Homes will have insulated over 1,149 hard to heat properties, along with all traditional cavity walled properties. This improves the U-Value of these properties from between to 0.3 or below (U-Values indicate how easily heat travels through a substrate; the lower the figure, the better). According to Energy Saving Trust, this can save up to 1.9 tonnes of carbon annually, equating to over 2,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. The environmental impact even goes as far as the workforce used for the improvements. Due to a skills shortage in the region for insulating properties during a busy period, contractors resorted to drafting specialist workers from elsewhere. Recognising that this was not only an opportunity to train and employ local people, but also contradicted efforts of reducing our carbon footprint, we set up a training and apprenticeship scheme for local residents to install External Wall Insulating systems. The course has proved immensely popular with all 15 places filled, 10 of which are from Salix Homes postcodes. In line with Salix Homes commitment to not just focus on the physical measures, we also believe it is important to measure the additional benefits to the community and local area. For this, we chose SROI, which looks beyond simple bill savings, to consider factors such as:

4 income for local business employment creation maintenance savings avoided health costs reduction in CO 2 emissions. In the pilot study on the New Barracks estate, through close working with the residents, British Gas and the tenant management organisation we achieved an SROI of 1:1.6, meaning for every 1 spent there are 1.60 of benefits for the local area. These included: 129,884 attributed to NHS benefits 898,678 of benefits to customers 1,723,000 to businesses. What is less tangible however, but perhaps equally as important, is the knowledge and behavioural change in how residents use energy. This has had a significant impact on both the monetary and carbon savings already calculated which would undoubtedly be smaller had this holistic approach not been in place. In addition, the knowledge and behaviour that is likely to be passed down through generations and friends will add to the Salix Green sustainable credentials. Please tell us briefly why your organisation should win this award Salix Homes and sustainable housing go hand in hand. Groundbreaking retrofitting schemes, qualified energy advisors, the government s Green Deal trailblazer and a plethora of innovative energy efficiency measures to homes means that it isn t just the logo that s green! Sustainability runs throughout the organisation. From the physical work to our housing stock through to training our customers in Energy Efficiency and External Insulation. Salix Homes are committed to finding new ways of cutting carbon emissions and ending fuel poverty across our housing stock, while creating better neighbourhoods and communities. The commitment can be seen in our application; we train staff and support them in spreading energy awareness, and we go above and beyond in improving our homes. Most importantly, we involve our customers, providing energy advice in their homes, offering energy awareness training and holding the Green Board, to scrutinise and improve the way we go about achieving our sustainability goals. Our recent Keep Warm, Keep Well initiative demonstrates the crossorganisational commitment to reducing fuel poverty and helping the environment. Over 30 members of staff visited vulnerable residents to give basic energy advice, check heating systems, complete full home energy audits or give out blankets and hand warmers. The Measuring Change reports clearly demonstrate success in delivering

5 physical measures. The Green Board and Green Strategy also show direction and commitment on a strategic level. Salix Homes deserve to win Sustainability Landlord of the year for demonstrating that a holistic approach is the only way of making neighbourhoods truly environmentally sustainable.