We’re building a novel community-based approach to home energy decarbonisation. We aim to reduce the hassle of maintaining and improving homes while incorporating energy efficiency and decarbonisation measures.
Loco Home Retrofit CIC is a Co-operative in Glasgow providing advice to homeowners who want to make their homes more comfortable while also getting more energy efficient, ready for Net Zero. We have learnt a great deal about the motivations and challenges for homeowners. We are now inviting householders, local tradespeople and professionals to join the Co-operative and influence the next stage of our development. This blog sets our proposed approach – please let us know what you think. The UK is the world’s fifth largest contributor to climate change (Our World in Data, 2019) and, in Glasgow, heat and energy for homes account for 31% of reported emissions (BEIS, 2020). If runaway climate change is to be avoided, then these emissions must be brought close to zero within the next 10 to 15 years. That’s about 80 retrofits per day across Glasgow starting today. However, action by the UK and Scottish governments to reduce emissions is developing slowly and there is an urgent need to build retrofit skills and capacity (Scot Gov, 2020). Grassroots action can reach places the government can’t, while also building the necessary public support for bold government intervention. Most emissions from homes in Glasgow are from gas boilers. Eliminating these emissions will be achieved through a combination of energy efficiency such as insulation and replacing gas boilers with renewable alternatives such as heat pumps. To retrospectively fit (‘retrofit’) these improvements to existing properties can be challenging, especially for home owners. Retrofit can often be complex, risky, expensive and disruptive. However, this needn’t be the case. Through our research we have found that many households have the intent and the opportunity for retrofit but just need some help to get started. Loco Home Retrofit aims to provide that support.
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