The impact we have on our climate, and the world we choose to leave for future generations has become the defining issue of our age.
While we've worked for many years to reduce our energy consumption, become more sustainable and limit our impact on the environment, it's clear that we need a new, more ambitious plan to meet the scale of the challenge we all now face.
Our new, more ambitious carbon reduction plan focuses on reducing the impact every aspect of our organisation has on the environment, committing us to becoming a carbon neutral landlord by 2050.
Our actions will focus on the homes we rent, the homes we build and the way we work.
Carbon footprint
Our first step has been to benchmark our carbon footprint. To make sure that this work was as robust as possible, we looked not only at the carbon emissions of our direct assets, but also at our supply chain and supporting activities. As a result of this work, we believe we emit circa 133,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum.
Our carbon footprint is broken down into two main areas; the energy used by our 35,000 homes which makes up the majority of our carbon footprint and the way we work, including the services we deliver and the products we procure. Our plan will focus on reducing the carbon created by these two elements as well as ensuring that our new build homes are as sustainable as possible.
Future Homes Standard
Project 80
A research and development programme exploring different solutions and technologies to model the Future Homes Standard, while building new homes and lowering costs for our tenants.
This is a video from the Chartered Institute of Housing and we're unable to edit the captions, so here is a full transcription:
Addressing climate change both individually and collectively has become the defining issue of our age. Midland Heart a Housing Association delivering homes and services to more than 70,000 people across the Midlands say their customers and their homes are at the heart of their carbon reduction plan.
Come on in, welcome to your new home. Christine Clark is being shown her new social housing home, when it's finished she'll move in with her two young daughters and her partner, but this is no normal new build, it's the home of the future with lots of new tech to save on bills and make living here healthier.
So I’m housing support officer at the moment and I am on a low income, I'm putting a lot in for my gas and my electric, I do pay as you go, so hopefully this will be like saving me some money basically, well they say 65%, really, of your bills, that would be really helpful, really helpful.
These 12 homes are being built by Midland Heart, social housing association in Birmingham, these houses are part of a wider project to ensure new builds meet the government's new standards for future homes. The Future Home Standard is due to come into the building regulations in 2025 and as a part of that we'll see homes produce 80% less CO2 than ones built with current regulations. It's the first of a kind for a social housing provider to develop a scheme that models the Future Home Standard.
So in this cupboard we've got our hot water heat pump. Working with Birmingham City University, the project is testing out various types of low and zero carbon technologies such as air source heat pumps, solar panels, wastewater heat recovery and insulation.
What is PM1? Christine and her neighbours will learn how to use the technology and keep a diary of how they interact with their new home. Researchers from the university will monitor via sensors, looking at indoor air quality, temperature and energy efficiency.
I've been waiting a long time for this night I'm very, very impressed, I'm so happy about it. It's a really, nice property as well and the things that I've been told about the technology involved as well, I'm really excited to get involved and use it.
Some of the houses are airtight and use a mechanical ventilation system, if you open a window it has the potential to imbalance the system. And how do you think people will take on not being able to just open the doors to get some fresh air in? I think it would be a different way of living in the property, which is kind of like key to telling people the importance of these systems and how they work and the purpose of them.
We're trying to understand what it's like for them to live there, what it does for the fuel bills, are they comfortable to live in, so we can help uh communicate and inform for the future homes that we'll build as well.
Right next to the project is one of Midland Heart's older properties, most of their housing stock looks like this, so they're working with British Gas and Centrica to retrofit, using better insulation and materials and zero carbon technology.
We simply can't build enough homes so we need to retrofit our properties, so by retrofitting we'll be enhancing the local community and we'll be preserving the heritage and culture of that area which is often lost when building new properties.
We are aiming by 2030 for all our homes to be a minimum of EPC-C which is a sort of energy efficiency rating and that's quite a challenge because 10,000 of our homes are over 100 years old.
There is a shortage of social housing across the country, Midland Heart alone has a waiting list of 22,000. Christine knows she's one of the lucky ones and is part of a project that will hopefully set the standard for all new social housing.
