Transcript: Sustainability and Net Zero: Turning targets into actions

Transcript for episode 4, ‘Sustainability and Net Zero: Turning targets into actions’.

Jon Slade
Hello and welcome to the latest in Campbell Tickell’s podcast series looking at the big issues across the social housing sector. There’s perhaps no issue bigger in scale, cost, and duration than the journey towards a more sustainable approach to social housing and net zero. I’m Jon Slade and I lead in asset management and sustainability for CT. And I’m joined today by two experts, one of whom works in a leading provider and the other of whom advises many organisations across the sector. Let’s get the introductions out the way first. So, Sam, please, could you say hello, tell us who you are and why and how you came to work in sustainability.

Sam Granger
Hi, John. Yeah, hi, everybody. Yes, Sam Granger. So, I’m head of environmental sustainability at 13 Group up in the northeast. I’ve been interested in environmental sustainability since a really young age. I went to university and actually studied environmental science back in the late 90s, but opportunities at the time were really low in the field. I didn’t secure a role until I went back to university in 2010 to do my masters. And whilst there I secured a knowledge transfer partnership between Teesside uni and what was then fabric housing. And then it’s just gone from there. I went for a six-month placement within housing and never left.

Jon Slade
That’s marvellous. Thank you very much. And Adam.

Adam Broadway
Hi, everyone. Adam Broadway. I run a company called instinctively green and I’ve been involved in the sector for many years professionally, probably about 15 years running the consultancy. But I think the driver for me was this whole issue about waste. I don’t know if everybody agrees who’s listening in, but there’s a real problem in my head about throwing things away. Why would you do it? And I think that’s always been embedded in me. And when I joined the housing sector in the development world, one of the things I was concerned about was a that waste. So, you went on a building site and you saw so many skips throwing things away. But then there was another issue. In the kind of 90s when we were developing schemes, there was a real concern about the pressure point on people’s ability to pay for things. And so it kind of drove me to think about, well, what if we made sure that the houses we built were just a lot cheaper to run? And that kind of set me really into the sustainability world of trying to kind of marry those pressures to use less resource, but also to make sure that we stop throwing things away and just did it in a much better system and process. So, they’re my main drivers.

Jon Slade
That’s great. So, we’re going to use a recent project that Adam and I worked on as a way into our discussion. Adam, could you briefly describe the London retrofit action plan that we worked on together?

Adam Broadway
So, the London Retrofit Programme was commissioned by the London councils, of which there are 33. And over the last 18 months they came together under the climate change auspice, really to see what we could do with the whole of the existing stock in London. So, it’s over 3 million properties, 9 million people, but it’s coming up with a plan to basically to retrofit, to bring all those properties up to primarily a level called EPC, which I’m sure people are familiar with, ideally of an average of a level B across all the sectors. And the action plan as a whole, is an incredible document and brilliantly kind of brought together, but it sets out a fantastic ambition about doing that. And our role was to turn that document into an implementation plan. So, what do you need to do to make that all happen? We were commissioned at the beginning of the year to do that piece of work and completed it in spring. And the key things I think we saw was an agreement that the ambition was incredibly ambitious and would be extremely complex and challenging to do. But without it, we have a major problem because we need that ambition to be able to kind of drive and improve the quality of our housing stock, which we have a significant number.

Jon Slade
Brilliant. Thank you. And Sam, how does that sort of scale make you feel?

Sam Granger
It’s exciting, I think, reading that document and looking at the opportunities that it would bring both for the housing sector and the occupants of those homes, but also driving the economy, the supply chain and just it’s where we need to be looking to move towards. I’m a big believer in collaboration. At the moment, we have the Social Housing Decarbonisation fund available to registered providers, which is there for the taking to drive and get us towards EPCC with our stock. But at the moment, I don’t think we’re collaborating as well as we could be as a sector. We’re all going out there and delivering and retrofit on properties that are probably quite closely related. I mean, I can only speak for the northeast, where we are, but there’s a big pressure on the supply chain to meet the demand that’s coming through this. But because we’re not all working together, we’re not all joint up in our procurement, we’re not all joint up in our approach, we’re all going to the supply chain with probably all wanting the same things, but just in slightly different ways and in slightly different timescales, but we’re competing against each other for that supply and it’s not doing us any favours, really.

Sam Granger
I think if we could look at this model and see how it could be utilised across different locations, we’d probably have more success. We’d be able to do more, get more value for money out of the funding and our own resource, and deliver more at scale.

Jon Slade
That’s really interesting. Thanks. And Adam, what was your biggest takeaway.

Adam Broadway
From the retrofit London work, besides the ambition? There are real opportunities around gathering the data. For example, one of the fascinating things is that I think the public sector has been very good, as it should be, in having good knowledge or better knowledge of its property stock, that there’s a huge challenge around the private sector and how you engage them. But actually, when you look at a kind of typical street in London or in most cities, there are quite a lot of very standards, very similar house types, and I think the ability to kind of sample house types would enable you to kind of get a much better overview picture, average picture of what the challenges are for that particular property type, which then allows you then to plan about how do you engage the owners of those properties and the customers of those properties to kind of get a really succinct, coordinated. I totally agree with Sam about bringing the coordination together to enable us to come up with proposals which you could then take forward. Because that data point, I think, was the area that we kind of were really concerned that you need to get to grips with very quickly, so that we just then have got an opportunity to map out the solutions, because it needs to be data driven rather than solutions.

There’s been a lot of stuff in the past, particularly around new build, about putting gadgets on and technology that really shouldn’t be the starting point. It’s about fabric of a building. How do you insulate it? Those type of things must come first. That was one of the key things that we discovered and emphasised back in our plan.

Jon Slade
That’s really useful. Thanks. And Sam, say a bit if you would, about where 13 are in their sustainability journey.

Sam Granger
We’ve been on this journey for a while. I’ve been with the organisation about twelve years now, but over the past three years we’ve really had a lot more focus on sustainability, and we’ve spent some time establishing what the journey to net zero by 2050 for our homes. But what it means for us as a business as well. We’ve recently had it signed off by a bod and it’s part of our strategic plan. Now, it’s a priority for us as a business to be net zero by 2035. And a lot of that has been our ability to do that planning. A lot of it has been really reliant on the data that’s helped us to really formulate what that journey looks like for us.

Jon Slade
How have you managed the difficult balance? What we often see with data is organisations not feeling able to move until they’ve got all of the data. Whereas actually we would be advising that there’s probably a lower threshold of data that can enable some forward movement. Has that been an issue for you guys?

Sam Granger
Yeah, I would say you’re right. It’s knowing what you have got and what you haven’t got. So, the first thing we did about three years ago now was to do our carbon footprint baseline across the business. And that really highlighted where we had good data and where we didn’t have good data. And then we’ve had a plan in place, basically to improve that data over time. So, both the availability and the quality of it, and in doing that and having that data and having that kind of understanding where our low hanging fruit is, where we can make impacts quickly, we’ve been able to formulate a plan which has then helped us to get that board level agreement and set it as a priority within the business. Because having that data and the understanding of where the benefits lie has obviously then sold it to the boardroom on. Yes, we can see why it’s a priority. We understand what the journey looks like and get them behind us.

Jon Slade
That’s really interesting. And just one other follow up, I suppose. To what extent has those steps that you’ve described there? Were they an easy fit with a traditional approach to asset management? Or was it all new stuff that was happening in different software adjacent, or were you modelling in stuff that people already understood? How’s that aspect gone?

Sam Granger
Yeah, that’s been a journey. When you look at data that you need to measure carbon, save for the business, it’s generally your finance department have got it. It’s your energy bills, your money you’ve been spending on fleet, it’s in systems, but it’s kept in there in pounds and Pence, not necessarily the way that you need the data to actually do the calculations. So, we’ve needed to make some changes there in the way that we’re managing that data. Same with the asset data. We’ve invested time in a new asset planning software which helps us to measure and understand the EPC levels more simply. It has required some changes, but the information is out there. I think it’s just that when you change the systems, it becomes, yes, you can do it without the systems, but having the systems makes it simpler.

Jon Slade
Thanks Adam. You mentioned at the outset cost and use for residents. It’s definitely been my experience that sometimes is relatively low on the list of priorities for asset managers. They’re perhaps more comfortable with the ideas of buildings and doing things to buildings, and less comfortable with initiatives that can positively impact the lives of the people who live in the buildings. Just say a bit more about that, if you would, and your experience of those sorts of issues.

Adam Broadway
I totally agree. I’ve worked for a number of housing associations helping them to write their sustainability strategy. Some of them are advanced now on doing that, but certainly one of the challenges was the silo approach, and that’s often caused by work pressures, staffing issues, understanding of the topic. Actually, what I think is really important in this debate is making sure that sustainability is understood by everybody and all the elements of it. So, it’s really important to have a wider sustainability strategy for the business, of which it’s developed by the participation of all the different elements within a business. So, asset managers, customer relations people, property people, the works. And the reason I say that is that in doing that debate and having that discussion and engagement allows property people, who might well be constrained because of budgets, staffing, et cetera, to see a kind of wider picture and then allows the housing management, customer services people to make the case very eloquently about the customer. I think it’s that joining up which is really important in the business, to encourage and to facilitate, because that allows people to just think better about what the wide implication is.

Jon Slade
That’s really interesting. And Sam, I guess if we go back six months, how strong was the join between customer experience, customer cost in use and what you were thinking of doing to buildings? And then as a supplementary to that, what effect has the last six months had on the nature of the questions that you’re being asked about that?

Sam Granger
It’s something we’ve been looking at as part of our strategy for the last few years. When we first started looking at what our journey to net zero would look like straight away, it was we need to do it with a customer in mind. Whatever we do to our homes to take them towards net zero, we’ve got to do with the customer and the end user in that thought process. We need to make sure that we’re reducing the costs, but also that it’s an easy to use product. So, we’re not putting customers in spaceships. We’re not placing them in homes that make it difficult for them to live their lives. We need to make sure that the homes are warm, they’re safe and they’re healthy for the longer term. So, it’s something that as we’ve developed both our fabric first approach, or where we’ve put renewables in, we’ve been very conscious of. We took part in the Northern Housing Consortium’s climate jury, which was really interesting journey for us as well, because it helped us understand how much we’d done, but also where we had other areas to focus on. We specifically employed people to work directly with our customers as we’re taking them through the retrofit process on site to ensure that we’re getting that the customers are understanding why we’re doing what we’re doing to their properties and then what the outcomes are going to be for them in the longer term as well, and how we can help them to maximise the benefits.

Sam Granger
Because I think, again, that’s one of the key points, but it can’t just stop there. As Adam said, it’s not just the property people, it’s not just the customers, it’s the people managing those properties as well, understanding that the wider sustainability need. So one of the things we’ve also committed to is the delivery of carbon literacy training across all colleagues within 13, I’m happy to say we’re about 30% of the way through our employees now. We’ve had some really good buy in. Brit’s really helping to spread that message that the delivery of a sustainability approach across our business and our homes and working our customers isn’t just something that sits with Sam and her team or with the asset team. It’s something that needs to be owned by everyone. Our branding that we’re using is take control. And it basically is about how you as an individual within 13, take control of your impacts and understand how you can take control of the impact within your role as well, to actually drive that message through. And we found that’s been really helpful with the engagement piece. Across the piece. Really?

Jon Slade
That’s great. Thank you, Adam. I often hear sustainability and carbon zero used interchangeably. In fact, they’ve got slightly different meanings and I wonder if you could just clarify for us what they are.

Adam Broadway
So net zero is about carbon use and the making of carbon. But the way I see it, and it has become because the government got a target of the country being net zero by 2050, that is basically saying that however you operate, whatever you’re operating is you’re going to basically not put carbon into the atmosphere. The point about sustainability is it’s much wider because it’s environmental, social and economic. And it’s about getting the balance between those three to allow us basically to do something for a much longer period of time. So running your business forever in a day, for living as long as you possibly can with the resources, etc, that you’ve got. And it’s a subtlety in some ways, but in other ways, I think it’s a really important distinction to be made that actually sustainability is the long term goal that we have to live on a plant, one planet, we only have one planet, we only have one set of resources. And basically, if we exploit those to the nth degree, then we’ll have a problem with our future as a species. Sustainability has to think about these kind of much wider things, not just the climate change.

Because if we don’t make that distinction, then we might fix climate change, but we won’t fix climate change. We will stop it or stop its impact getting worse. But if we suddenly completely use all the resources left, then we’re not going to be here. So, they are two very different things where it’s important, I think, for a business is to help people, to get that wider picture about people’s health, about using resources, about kind of living as if you want to live on the planet for the next x number of hundreds of years. And that is the very difficult bit. And I’m delighted that Samantha has just been saying about what you’re doing internally as a business, with your people, and hopefully your customers as well, is to try and get that wider understanding of what the complexity of being a sustainable business is. But do it in a sensible, steady way, because you’re not going to do it overnight. But you need to start chipping away at some of the quick wins, the easy hits, and embedding it in people’s culture, in the business’s culture and people, hopefully, in people’s lifestyles, so they get it and then they can make that step towards being a much more sustainable individual and business.

Jon Slade
I think. I got the impression, Sam, that for you, it probably started with buildings and net zero, but has unfolded from there into something bigger and wider, that it’s more about sustainability as well as carbon zero. Is that about right?

Sam Granger
Yeah, certainly. I agree with what Adam’s just been saying to me. You can’t do one without the other. In order to get towards net zero within our properties, we need to look at the bigger picture. We need to look at the wider action of sustainability and really think about. There’s so much. As we started talking at the beginning, when we’re looking at the report, there is so much economic opportunity when it comes to sustainability as well, just in the supply chain, in the business opportunities, the skilled workforce that’s going to be required to deliver what we need, the opportunity is endless there. There’s going to be technology getting developed over the next couple of years that we haven’t even dreamed of yet to help us move towards net zero. But, yeah, I honestly don’t think you can do one without the other. You’ve got to have everybody on the journey. You need to understand the wider impacts, you need to be looking at the waste, you need to be looking at the supply chain, you need to be looking at the skills, you need to be looking at people’s understanding in order to get towards that net zero goal.

Jon Slade
Sam, what’s the biggest obstacle to progress and how are you overcoming it?

Sam Granger
I think one of the biggest obstacles, well, there’s two. One of them is the skills gap. We are a bit of a tipping point, I think, at the moment when it comes to having the skilled workforce needed to deliver what’s required to get us to net zero, whether that be the skilled workforce delivering the retrofit to our properties, because there is a big gap there, but also the workforce coming through that have got an understanding of how to do a carbon footprint, how to do some carbon accounting to get a business up to net zero, the whole biodiversity and protecting nature element, that’s really becoming as important, if not more important than net zero, because those people just aren’t out there in the workforce. So we really need to be doing more to work with universities, the educational institutions, to look at what skills are actually joining the workforce now. More training opportunities, more apprenticeships that are within this realm as well. So we’re not just relying on people coming out of university, that we’re getting people trained on the job. I think there’s a real big piece of work to do there.

Jon Slade
Yes, a couple of things just to finish up. Not for profit landlords face many challenges in terms of the cost of living, an unmet housing need and 30 year financial plans which don’t capture the costs of carbon zero or some don’t at this point in time. So in your experience, Sam, are sustainability issues seen as must dos or nice to haves?

Sam Granger
I think the must dos now. I think the time of nice to haves have left us, thankfully. I think now we must do. I agree with Adam, though we do need more of a government and political steer on this. We need to have at the moment we’ve got EPCC by 2030 is really the only stick that has been placed upon us. Net zero by 2050 doesn’t really. It’s not hard enough, it’s not fast enough and not everybody knows really how they’re going to get there. But I do think it is a must because we’ve seen what’s happening with the energy crisis over this winter. We may see some people really struggling and I think as RPS, it’s something that we can do a lot about by improving the energy efficiency of our stock. So it’s two birds, one stone. We reduce our negative impact of those properties on the environment whilst also ensuring that we’re providing warm, comfortable, sustainable homes for our customers.

Jon Slade
I think that’s right. But I think you put your finger on the number of the problem in a way that 2050 is a flag on the horizon so far away that budgetary commitments now to getting to that point feel. It feels like one or more cans that perhaps you can kick down the road a bit. And at the moment there’s lots and lots of financial pressures for other reasons on organisations and the risk is that these cans get further kicked down the road because the flag on the horizon is so far away. I absolutely agree with that. Well, let’s finish on a positive point then, Adam. Make the case for a social landlord to be building passive houses or properties of a similar level of performance.

Adam Broadway
It’s a must because I think it’s a lot easier to future proof and to make low energy user building at new. So basically, it should become standard. Whether you build a passive house, I would suggest you probably don’t necessarily have to build a passive house. Actually, there are number of initiatives out there at the moment which are close enough to it which are extremely economical to run and not that more expensive to build. And I always think it’s better to build more homes of those standards than spend a huge lot of extra money getting like passive house certification. Sorry, technical points, but I think there are levels of building above the current building regulations which are, to be fair, are improving drastically, which is about time. But I think that’s where we can do it and we can do this. There’s plenty of technology which enables us to do it. I think the RP sector could easily adopt its own kind of building regs plus standard and get on with it.

Jon Slade
That’s why I’m the host and you’re the expert. I’m duly told off, Sam, persuade a youngster to work in sustainability.

Sam Granger
I mean, why wouldn’t you want to? I think that’s the first statement. We’re at a point now where I think talking to younger people, just your world, your country needs you. We need ambitious, innovative people who are really passionate about this subject to get within every area of business. There is not an industry out there, there’s not a company that doesn’t need to be thinking about its long-term sustainability financially, but also thinking about it with regards to environmental impacts. I just don’t think there’s ever been a better time for somebody to join this industry. The amount of opportunities on the market are just on the up and we do not have the skilled people that we need within the workforce. So, yeah, I think we need to have it in every school, every university, every college, every company should be looking at taking on environmental apprentices and building skills in house as well.

Jon Slade
You banged the desk once, Sam, and it was during that last sentence. Well, thank you to both of you. I think the thing I’ve found most striking in what you’ve both had to say is that the scale of the undertaking requires collaboration in all sorts of different ways. And they’re ways which many housing organisations are broadly unfamiliar with. It requires us to think differently, moving forwards and behave and do things differently than we may have done in the past. But if we do that, we can gain access to resources jointly that we would otherwise be competing for, and we can gain access to those resources whilst burning less calories than if we’re competing for them. And that seems to me a really important difference. And that applies whether we’re talking about the technical stuff that we’re going to do to properties or the people or the structure of the data. All of these things are ripe for collaboration. Thank you so much for your contributions, been really helpful. Hope listeners have found it interesting and with that we’ll sign off and say goodbye. So thanks, Adam, and goodbye to you, Sam, thanks for your time and look forward to speaking again soon.

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To discuss the issues raised in episode 4, contact Jon Slade on jon.slade@campbelltickell.com