Retrofit is “the Nexus Between Climate and Energy Justice”
Bringing together everyone from local residents to home energy and retrofit advisors, to suppliers and academics, Selce’s CEO Giovanna Speciale kicked off our Festival of Retrofit on 30 November by explaining our choice of subject:
“Retrofit is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s the one change we can make that will produce carbon savings year-on-year. It sits at a nexus between energy justice and climate justice – if we retrofit our homes, we also improve our health. It’s almost the key that unlocks the kind of transition we need to see in South East London.”
Bubbles of Carbon
“I have a bit of an affliction – I walk around and see bubbles of carbon, I look at a solid brick house with an ancient gas boiler and no roof insulation and I see bubbles of carbon – bubbles of harm to our community.
“If you look at what we can do, there are no barriers to us becoming a low carbon, fairer community – the barrier to retrofit are financial, attitudinal, to do with the supply chain.
“One of the reasons Selce wanted to support retrofit is not just because of the carbon benefits, but also because this is where we can affect change. The key to enabling it is bringing people together – and enabling them to have a conversation.”
Buildings as Dynamic, not Static
Architectural anthropologist Maria Șalaru, formerly of UCL and now working with Lewisham council on its retrofit strategy, has direct experience of such a change in her hometown in Northern Romania – documented in her film the Block:
“Both as a resident and scholar I was looking at my hometown, seeing concrete examples of inequality… Over 10 years of work, my PhD and more work at UCL, it’s interesting how buildings are described as static entities – walls, doors and so on. But in fact, they’re dynamic – they have to transform, and people have to care for their maintenance.”
In working on her film, Maria spent a year getting to know the block’s residents – not least its administrator, documenting his creation of a custom heating system – overcoming social challenges, dealing with people’s varying demands, not to mention process and technical challenges along the way.
As Maria also pointed out, buildings are political as well as structural – and in Romania as in the UK, at times an unbelievably difficult topic: “if not done correctly, Grenfell happens.” And with a comparable incident in 2015 occurring in Romania, which prompted a fall in government.
RETROFIT CAN “IMPROVE LIVES, BUT ONLY IF DONE IN ACCOUNTABLE WAY, WITH THOUGHTFULNESS AND CARE.”
Part of that is a “two way conversation at every stage – people know their homes the best.” Finally, in support of collaborative, community-based approaches, she cited her experience on a Durham-based project where, by involving students in reporting and insight gathering, the local council were able to save around £10m.
Experience on the Ground
But what about the experience of retrofit on an individual level in South East London?
Representing her own retrofit project was local homeowner and founder of the Greener Greenwich Community Network Tamasin Rhymes, giving some relatable reasons why many projects never get off the ground.
“WE HAD LOTS OF THINGS TO DO, BUT NO TIME OR MONEY TO DO THEM. WONDERING ABOUT HOW EACH CHANGE WOULD IMPACT THE OTHER, YOU GO ROUND IN CIRCLES AND YOU NEVER EVEN GET STARTED.”
One of the major blockers in any type of retrofit, is in not being confident of contractors – not being able to have collaborative conversations, when ultimately each house and how it is lived in is different.
There is still a gulf between the ambition and speed needed and our own comfort, bank balances and skills and training knowledge on the other.
A profit-driven building industry doesn’t always work in the interest of the homeowner –that is, understanding what is really needed, rather than what makes the most money.
From Individual to Communal Buildings
This is where community energy groups such as Selce come in. Rather than being first and foremost profit-driven, their purpose is to work together with residents alongside contractors for mutual benefit.
Selce co-chair Nadia Smith led development of our first Future Fit Homes programme, a one stop service to plan, finance and install retrofit. At the event, Nadia explained why retrofitting community buildings in particular is so important:
Our usual experience of community buildings is being too cold in winter, too warm in summer – but where they are retrofitted, often this is where we get our first experience of what that feels like. It’s not just that most often children, or people with disabilities get to benefit from these changes.
“COMMUNITY CENTRES DON’T KEEP SECRETS TO THEMSELVES, THEY SHARE FINDINGS WITH OTHER GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS ON HOW TO GO DOWN THE SAME ROUTE.”
Having a first place to feel the difference retrofit makes is often a first step in a process that ends in retrofitting our own homes. A first step in what can otherwise be a complex, even boring topic. And often community buildings are the bridge between commercial and domestic buildings.
Practical solutions we see first in a church for example, like energy management systems, end up in residential spaces. We may not experience these innovations so often in offices or other commercial settings.
The Church as Community Network
And speaking of churches, Keith Ison of St Alfege Church Eco-Group works on one such building. Keith explained some of the specific challenges around retrofitting a grade one listed building, from easy steps such as draft proofing, to trickier ones to say the least – replacing 18th century windows, or getting permission for solar or even a heat pump on a listed church.
Keith’s advice, above all else is “Don’t try and do it on your own, get advice and learn from other people.” The Church of England is itself a community network, and there is “lots of small stuff happening, all the good stuff is at community level.” He highlighted the fact that buildings such as York Minster already have solar despite being grade one listed, and St Johns at Waterloo as another great example of future-proofing a church building.
“IT’S NOT JUST ADDRESSING A BUILDING’S NEEDS, BUT ALSO ENCOURAGING INDIVIDUALS TO TAKE THEIR APPROACH TO NET ZERO SERIOUSLY.”
The Church of England works with environmental charity A Rocha which supports the Eco Church movement. The five steps the group suggests you address are particularly relevant to the day’s event: including buildings and energy, community engagement (both local and global) and communication: “it’s no good doing stuff unless you talk about it.”
“Love Insulation as Much as We Love Clothes”
Harry Paticas, architect, plus founder and MD of Retrofit Action for Tomorrow (RAFT) is also highly focused on communicating the benefits of retrofit – especially to the next generation.
Harry’s own retrofit journey included his own home – retrofitted to Passivhaus standard over seven years and effort – a 70s mid-terrace house in Lewisham. And he then opened his doors to neighbours to share his experience.
“RETROFIT IS MY PASSION. I LOVE INSULATION, AND I THINK WE SHOULD LOVE INSULATION AS MUCH AS WE LOVE CLOTHES. I THINK WE SHOULD PAY IT THE SAME ATTENTION.”
It was a lot of work. But it is now using 3600 kWh, while generating 4000.
Harry’s son was in year three when he made the link to understanding the power of connecting with primary schools, and from there into the wider community: “give a thermal camera to kids and they love it.”
RAFT leads workshops in schools, helping them decarbonise – as simply and effectively as asking pupils to follow the heat through the building, understanding how it’s being produced – making all the links between how you keep spaces warm. “Using a passion for buildings to impart that knowledge to children.”
As an aside, Harry weighed in on the “raging debate” around how much retrofit is enough retrofit before installing a heat pump. The simple rule of thumb is now:
1. Windows if you can
2. airtightness + ventilation
3. Loft insulation
Over time add more insulation as and when possible.
“A Massive Infrastructure Project, for the Thing that is Most Personal to Us”
Madeleine Pauker is a PhD researcher at the Energy Demand Research Centre, studying housing decarbonisation and place-based approaches.
Place-based retrofit is about “recognising you can’t do retrofit in isolation, or only via national grant schemes. You need local groups and people coming together that people trust to support and help them through the process.”
The challenges can be summed up in the seeming contradiction that it is “a massive infrastructure project, for the thing that is most personal to us.”
Madeleine explained how there are essentially two approaches to place-based retrofit – community energy group taking on the challenge – as a source of advice, or guiding residents through whole process, like Selce.
Collective Retrofit
The other is trying to bring whole streets or neighbourhoods together to create economies of scale and retrofit collectively.
Examples of the second approach include Carbon Co-op in Manchester, which realised you could achieve economies of scale and results if you plan collectively. But that said, houses on a single terraced street vary. What’s needed therefore is an over-arching design plus flexibility. And with contractors part of the process from the very start, co-designing plans alongside residents.
Funded mainly through grants, Carbon Co-op also discovered its council could deliver zero interest loans up to £35k per home through a ‘group works’ loan – which only need to be fully repaid when ownership of the home changes. This was only discovered because someone with institutional memory from 90s remembered it. It must be added also, though there has been lots of interest from other areas wanting to copy this approach, not everyone has been able to replicate it.
As Madeleine explained, Retrofit Balsall Heath in Birmingham is unique because it has engaged a whole community, including via faith organisations to bring everyone involved into the project. So far, they’ve been able to retrofit 650 individual homes across the area. In terms of funding, they were able to get the council to contribute £10k per home, lobbying to get income criteria removed from eligibility requirements. In this case, it was found removing such restrictions was the most effective way to retrofit at scale.
Community Making Retrofit
In conclusion, Selce has three aims in South East London: to generate clean, fair energy, to reduce energy use and to leave no one behind in the process.
All of these aims were reflected across the many projects, studies, films, work and advice shared at the Festival of Retrofit.
All of these, all in their own way also highlighted one more thing:
The particular importance of community in making retrofit happen.
