A whole house approach to retrofit is required to meet ambitious carbon reduction targets, yet past Government approaches to energy efficiency have failed to deliver replicable delivery models, have led to poor quality schemes and have been led by large construction companies that fail to invest in skills and local jobs.
A four year project which started in late 2018, Energy Empowerment Greater Manchester builds on Carbon Co-op’s track record in deep retrofit services, to establish a citizen-led approach that invests community finance in works carried out by small, local firms – building a sustainable, local retrofit market infrastructure in Greater Manchester
This project attempts to create a closed-loop local economic system around retrofit including finance, supply chain, local knowledge and social capital to increase resilience; and, share the learning from this project within the Community Energy sector to replicate the approach throughout the UK.
The development activity consists of five work packages building key elements of retrofit infrastructure: finance; supply chain, technical expertise and householder engagement. Running concurrently, a delivery phase sees Carbon Co-op and other local providers meeting the need for retrofit through live retrofit works projects.