Getting Kingston’s housing retro‘fit’ for the future
London’s housing contributes to nearly a third of the capital’s carbon emissions and improving its energy efficiency through retrofitting is vital to meeting our climate targets.
In Kingston, we are looking for ways to tackle the barriers to retrofitting and make it more appealing to our residents. In 2023, we teamed up with businesses and the local community to deliver the borough’s first ever Efficient Homes Show.
‘Retrofitting’ is the process of making changes to a building that lowers its energy use, improves its energy efficiency and cuts the emissions associated with heating and powering it. It can also bring a range of other benefits. For example, homes which are retrofitted tend to be cheaper to run, more comfortable and healthy to live in, and often increase in value.
London has some of Europe’s oldest housing, and 80% of all homes expected to exist in 2050 have already been built. While much of it was built to stand the test of time, it wasn’t built with a changing climate or modern energy efficiency standards in mind.
The energy used to heat and power Kingston’s 68,000 homes accounts for about 40% of the carbon emissions generated locally, with 78% of our resident’s homes using gas boilers as the primary source of heating.
Working with communities towards a greener future that protects and enhances the environment is a key priority for us, and we know that helping people reduce emissions generated at home plays a huge part in this.
When we started looking at retrofit locally, alongside our residents, colleagues and partner organisations, a number of things emerged as obstacles. These include:
- Limited public knowledge about it;
- Lack of willingness to retrofit and trust in the process;
- Supply and demand issues;
- Contractors not knowing the commercial benefit of retrofit;
- Skills shortages;
- Cost, and limited availability of, funding.
It also became clear that the barriers were interconnected:
- With a limited knowledge of retrofit, communities would be less trusting of it;
- Without trust there would be less demand for local services;
- With less demand for services, contractors would be less likely to provide them;
- Without the need for services, the skills base would be less likely to grow;
- Without the skills base growing, technology and labour costs would likely remain high.
This is why we decided to take a holistic approach — gathering residents, businesses, contractors and educators together to start breaking down these barriers.
We formed a working group in partnership with the Kingston Green Business Community and Kingston Chamber of Commerce. The group created an outline for an event that would help kick start the process.
We sought out over 30 local businesses, contractors and organisations to showcase their products and services (for free), which included: insulation, solar panels, heat pumps, electric vehicle chargers, green roofs and much more. We also arranged speakers for a number of panel discussions on topics such as insulating homes and green jobs.
This formed the basis for Kingston’s first ever Efficient Homes Show, which took place at a local school.
Over 400 people signed up to join the show. Homeowners, landlords, renters, businesses, community groups, young people and others, all learning together how retrofit could improve their homes, reduce their energy costs and protect the planet.
The survey we conducted on the day showed us that:
66% were more likely to undertake some retrofit works after attending the event
97% wanted more events like this in the future
92% of businesses surveyed were able to make new leads or clients from the event.
Our Efficient Homes Show was the first of this kind and scale in Kingston and we are really happy how it was received by our residents and the local business community.
Running the event was not linked to high costs either. Aside from a contribution from the South London Partnership for the hire of exhibition booths, the only other costs were the hire of the school hall, providing breakfast for the exhibitors and some promotion in the run up to the event.
Following this success, we are arranging a bite size retrofit event in January, ahead of a second full size Efficient Homes Show in May 2024, so watch this space.
We are aware that such events are not going to help us overcome all obstacles related to retrofitting homes. However, we believe that bringing communities, businesses and educators together will help to increase trust in the process, therefore drive demand for services and contribute to a greener future for all.
If you’d like to find out more about the Efficient Homes Show, or would like some advice about arranging your own, please contact us at ioanna.rossi@kingston.gov.uk.
Ioanna Rossi — Green Economy Lead, Kingston Council; Ananya Tewari — Green Economy Assistant, Kingston Council
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