Sustainable Bristol

Bristol’s Great British Refurb

Posted on 05 August 2010

Refit West is supporting The Great British Refurb (GBR) campaign goal to make green home makeovers as easy and as accessible as possible for as many people as possible. Yael Rosenfeld from WWF explains what GBR is campaigning for, and how as a result one pioneering house in Bristol already earns more from making energy than from using it:

Imagine the ideal situation. A homeowner can easily install energy efficiency measures without paying a penny and a situation were the housing sector in the UK significantly reduces its carbon output (remember it accounts for 26% of the UK’s national emissions) in the climate change fight.

In the last year and a half  the GBR – which is a partnership between WWF, the UK Green Building Council, Grand Designs Magazine and Kevin McCloud, the host of the popular TV series Grand Designs -has achieved a lot .

Not trying to blow our own trumpet, but: we collected thousands of signatures on a petition to Gordon Brown asking the government to do more to help us green up our homes by providing cash and skilled tradesmen capable of doing energy makeovers.

And they listened, with the new government committing to it; Kevin McCloud elbowed his way on to last year’s Conservative party conference platform to set out what we need, and they once again heeded us, making it government policy now in the form of the Green Deal. Thousands of new supporters recently signed up supporting tax rebates for those who green their home, and again it was leaked as a government plan last week. A good strike rate by any measure.

Yet we have done more than just talking- we teamed up with the 10:10 campaign and organised a competition where one home owner won a full eco-retrofit of his home.

Will Homoky from Bristol is the lucky home owner – you can read about his experiences in his blog, including the fact that he now earns more from making energy than from using it!

We still have many more things to achieve in the coming year which is a crucial one. The new government is about to introduce an energy bill to the Parliament with provisions on new finance mechanisms to help home owners finance these eco-refurbishments and we’re working on making sure that it will be ambitious in its scope and that it will kick start a mass retrofitting programme.

This is the way forward for CO2 emission reduction, better homes for people, lower bills leading to more money in people’s pockets and creating new local  construction jobs to boot!

Will's Bristol home now earns more from making energy than from using it