Should there be a separate Green Deal for social housing?



Jeremy Kape, Director of Property Investment at Affinity Sutton

We have just released our first FutureFit report. This £1.2M project, which will take place over two years, has examined the implication and opportunities for large scale retrofit of Affinity Sutton’s 56,000 homes to improve energy performance and reduce carbon omissions. Uniquely we have also been able to assess the government’s funding initiative for these improvements – the Green Deal. 

FutureFit has shown that although Green Deal will work, the application of the golden rule (that the energy savings achieved must be greater than the cost of repayment for the measures installed) means it will deliver limited carbon savings in the social housing sector. This is due, in part, to social housing’s existing  levels of energy efficiency where many of the low cost high saving measures that are essential to support the Green Deal have already been carried out.

FutureFit has identified that the performance of the Green Deal can be greatly improved, and more significant savings achieved, if we have equal and open access to the new Energy Company Obligation funding (ECO) but more importantly if we can realise economies of scale by delivering works at volume through our existing asset management programmes. This would ensure that we made the most of our existing touch points i.e. installing insulation as part of kitchen replacement programmes savings further disruption to residents and reworking.

Delivery through existing programmes and on an estate by estate basis would significantly challenge the consumer driven focus envisaged by the government and would almost certainly require the creation of a Social Housing Green Deal, something the government have previously said they would not do.

But does achieving a more significant carbon saving justify a separate green deal for social housing or should we accept a lower carbon saving?