Energy and environment strategy 2015-2020
Affordable. Sustainable. Warm.
www.amicushorizon.org.uk
Contents
Sustainability Champion (Jane Porter)
3
Introduction4
Affordable energy and reducing the
causes of climate change
5
Adapting to climate change
7
Sustainable supply chain
7
Water use
7
Waste8
Green spaces
(Food growing and biodiversity)
8
Environmental measurement,
management and reporting
9
Delivering the strategy
9
© 2015 AmicusHorizon - AmicusHorizon Ltd.
Grosvenor House, 125 High Street, Croydon, Surrey,
CR0 9XP Telephone: +44 (0)800 121 60 60 or +44
(0)1795 434 606 - Fax: +44 (0)1795 434344
2 www.amicushorizon.org.uk
Energy and environment strategy 2015-2020
Jane Porter – AmicusHorizon’s
Executive Director Operations
and Sustainability Champion
AmicusHorizon adopted its first sustainability
strategy in 2011. Since then we’ve made
significant progress improving our
environmental performance and addressing
fuel poverty. We’ve been able to demonstrate
that a strong sustainability programme has
multiple benefits for housing associations
and their residents. We’re reducing our
environmental impacts, helping residents to
manage energy costs, improving resident
health and comfort and reducing our own
operational costs.
We achieved a Silver SHIFT (Sustainable
Homes Index for Tomorrow) rating in 2014.
This recognises our improved performance and
helps us to benchmark our achievements with
other housing providers. This new strategy sets
out how we’ll go on to achieve SHIFT Gold and
further improve our environmental performance
to 2020.
Our key sustainability challenge for the next five
years is to rethink how we’ll address fuel poverty
and meet government’s 80% carbon reduction
target in a climate of reduced grant funding. As
a sector, we’ll need to develop new, innovative
opportunities to finance and deliver large scale
whole house retrofit that achieves significant
carbon reduction, improves health and reduces
resident bills.
Affordable. Sustainable. Warm. 3
Introduction
We’re committed to helping our residents
to heat their homes to an affordable and
comfortable standard. We also recognise
that our homes and services have an impact
on the environment. We want to reduce this
impact to benefit both current and future
generations.
This strategy builds on our 2011 to 2014
Sustainability Strategy. We’ve made significant
progress reducing our environmental impacts
and fuel poverty. Our performance was externally
verified when we achieved a Sustainable Homes
Index for Tomorrow (SHIFT) Silver rating in 2014.
AmicusHorizon is now one of the UK’s leading
large housing associations for tackling fuel
poverty and environmental impact.
The Energy and Environmental Strategy sets
out our priorities for 2015 to 2020. We’ve
assessed our environmental impacts, measured
the energy performance of our homes and
consulted with residents about their priorities.
We want to develop truly sustainable homes and
neighbourhoods that are affordable, sustainable
and warm.
The future of grant funding for energy efficiency
will be complex. Funding from the energy
companies has been reduced significantly in
recent years. Once we are clear what grant
funding we are likely to be able to secure
we’ll assess what resources we’ll need to find
ourselves to invest in our homes. We’ll also
work with our partners to develop new nongrant based funding models as they emerge.
However, it is likely that without new grant or
new non grant models, the number of our homes
benefitting from energy investment will reduce.
There are multiple benefits to delivering this
strategy including:
XX Affordable energy and water for our residents
XX Reduced CO2 emissions in line with
government targets
XX Reduced wider environmental impact
including landfill waste and pollution to air,
land and water
XX Improved estates and streets for food
growing, biodiversity and resident health
XX Better value for money.
The strategy addresses the following
environmental themes. We’ve identified
improvement targets for delivery by 2020 under
each of the themes.
XX Affordable energy and climate change
mitigation
XX Adapting to climate change
XX Sustainable supply chain
XX Water use
XX Waste
XX Open spaces: Food growing and biodiversity
XX Environmental management and reporting.
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Energy and environment strategy 2015-2020
Affordable energy and reducing
the causes of climate change
Reducing CO2 emissions from our homes and
our business operations will help to reduce
the risk of climate change. We’ll help residents
to manage their energy bills by improving
the energy efficiency of our existing homes
and by delivering high quality energy advice.
By reducing emissions from our offices
and business travel we’ll further reduce our
environmental impact and improve value for
money.
New build homes
The requirement for housing providers to
build to the Code for Sustainable Homes (an
environmental performance standard for new
build homes) has now been removed
We will:
XX Assess the options, costs and benefits
of signing up to a voluntary sustainability
standard for our new homes. We’ll consult
with residents and make recommendations to
our Development Committee in the first year
of this strategy.
Existing homes
We will:
XX Deliver a programme of energy efficiency
improvements to our homes to achieve our
minimum energy rating of SAP65. This is
equivalent to upper band D on an Energy
Performance Certificate
XX Deliver improvements to the maximum
number of homes that our budgets and
grant funding opportunities allow. If it is
uneconomical to achieve our minimum
energy rating for a property, we’ll consider it
for disposal
XX Actively seek opportunities to deliver
community renewable energy projects to
improve our homes and secure long term
income for energy advice programmes.
Affordable. Sustainable. Warm. 5
Communal energy use
We will:
XX Implement an energy monitoring, targeting
and reporting process for all communal
energy use
XX Develop communal energy reduction action
plans for our ten highest usage sites
XX Deliver six communal energy reduction action
plans.
Resident energy and environmental advice
We will:
XX Develop a resident communications plan to
set out our energy and environmental advice
programme in the first year of this strategy
XX Deliver a minimum of 500 in-home energy
advice visits each year from April 2015 to
March 2020. We’ll prioritise visits to homes
receiving energy efficient retrofit
XX Distribute a minimum of 2,000 of our
environmental advice packs a year
(including to all residents moving in to one
of our existing or new homes). This will
include energy, water, municipal waste and
sustainable transport advice
XX Continue to recruit Resident Green
Ambassadors and support them to deliver
advice in their communities
XX Deliver an annual fuel poverty training
programme for all customer facing staff.
Our offices and people
We will:
XX Implement an energy monitoring, targeting
and reporting process for all office energy use
XX Reduce our office CO2 emissions by 20% by
2020 (against our 2014/15 baseline)
XX Reduce our business mileage (grey fleet and
commercial vehicles) by 15% (against our
2014 baseline)
XX Develop a staff communications plan to
make our staff aware of our energy and
environmental targets and their role in
achieving them
XX Support our staff Green Champions team to
deliver a programme of staff environmental
engagement and behaviour change projects.
6 www.amicushorizon.org.uk
Energy and environment strategy 2015-2020
Adapting to climate change
Climate change is expected to lead to
longer, hotter summers and milder, wetter
winters. We need to understand how we’ll
adapt our homes to cope with the potential
consequences of climate change.
XX Monitor environmental performance for all
refurbishment and construction contracts
including waste to landfill, sustainable
materials and vehicle CO2 emissions
XX Deliver training for all procurement and
contract management staff on our new
sustainable procurement requirements.
We will:
XX Undertake a summer overheating risk
assessment of our homes (current and future
risk) and develop a plan to adapt any high
risk buildings
XX Undertake a flood risk assessment of our
homes (current and future risk) and develop a
plan to adapt any high risk buildings.
Sustainable supply chain
The services and products that we buy can
have a significant impact on the environment.
We have a responsibility to understand these
impacts and to work with our suppliers to
reduce them.
Water use
All of AmicusHorizon’s homes and offices
are located in an area of high water stress.
Climate change is likely to lead to lower
annual rainfall. Water companies are
responding by installing water meters in
our homes. Improved water efficiency is
important to help keep water bills down.
We will:
XX Reduce resident water use from a 2014
baseline of 145 litres/person/day to 143 litres/
person/day in 2018 and 140 litres/person/day
in 2020
XX Reduce office water use by 10% (from our
2014/15 baseline).
We will:
XX Develop an environmental performance
specification for all types of refurbishment
contract
2014
XX Review our procurement process and
documentation to ensure environmental
compliance and sustainability is appropriately
covered
2018
XX Assess the options and benefits of requesting
that contractors bidding for our contracts
are signed up to an externally verified
sustainability performance scheme
2020
145
litres
143
litres
140
litres
Affordable. Sustainable. Warm. 7
Waste
Our refurbishment and new build projects
produce large volumes of waste. This
waste is often sent to landfill increasing our
environmental impact and our costs. We’ll set
reduction targets for refurbishment and new
build contracts and for our office waste.
We will:
XX Set waste reduction targets for all new
refurbishment contracts from April 2015
XX Set waste reduction targets for all new build
contracts from April 2015
XX Develop and implement a system for
accurately measuring all office waste at least
biannually
XX Maintain office recycling rates of at least 60%
to 2020
XX Regularly review our waste management
policy to ensure we continue to comply with
waste regulations. This will ensure hazardous
and non hazardous waste is handled safety
and the risk of fly tipping is reduced.
Green spaces
(Food growing and biodiversity)
AmicusHorizon owns and manages large
areas of green space. These spaces have
enormous potential for recreation, wildlife and
food growing. By improving our green spaces
we can reduce food miles, promote active
lifestyles and increase urban biodiversity.
We will:
XX Develop a new tool for assessing the quality
of our green spaces
XX Use the green space quality tool to involve
residents in assessing wildlife, recreation and
food growing opportunities of thirty of our
largest green spaces
Maintain office recycling
rates of at least 60%
to 2020
8 www.amicushorizon.org.uk
60%
XX Use the new green space quality evidence to
develop a new AmicusHorizon green spaces
strategy
Energy and environment strategy 2015-2020
Environmental measurement,
management and reporting
To improve our environmental performance
we need to continually measure, manage
and report our progress. We’ll continue to
benchmark our environmental performance
with other large housing providers.
We will:
XX Continually monitor and review our
Environmental Management System
Delivering the strategy
We’ve developed a detailed action plan to
monitor the delivery of this strategy. Our
Environmental Performance Group will
monitor the action plan and report progress
to our Strategic Board annually.
We’ll continue to innovate and seek new
opportunities to deliver a high quality energy and
environmental programme cost effectively and at
a greater scale.
XX Update our Environmental Performance
Group biannually on our sustainability action
plan progress and changes to legislation
XX Produce an Annual Environmental
Performance report for our board and publish
on our website
XX Achieve a SHIFT (Sustainable Homes Index
for Tomorrow) Gold rating in 2016.
Affordable. Sustainable. Warm. 9
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