Everyone deserves to live in a warm, energy-efficient home. But 19m UK properties need an upgrade – with older people, the less wealthy, and those in bad health most likely to be affected.
For more than a decade, Ashden has supported action and innovation to insulate houses across the UK through retrofitting. Investing in retrofit brings so many benefits – from better health and lower bills to good green jobs and economic opportunities.
Ashden’s work has included the Ashden Awards – bringing grants, publicity and connections to the pioneers who are warming homes. Award winners include Stockport’s B4Box, who fix up homes while helping local young people build careers in construction. Another is Energiesprong UK, whose retrofit method upgrades homes with new external walls (doors and windows included) in a matter of days. This makes retrofit quicker, cheaper and easier - bringing the benefits of a warm home to more families.
The Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust, a 2023 Ashden Award winner, scooped their prize for developing carbon credits that unlock new funding for retrofit schemes. Ashden has also awarded a host of smart energy monitoring solutions that lower bills and put power in the hands of residents.
Councils have a key role to play in this challenge – so Ashden’s wide range of learning networks, resources, and case studies are designed with local authorities in mind. They allow councils with limited time and resources to learn from, and implement, solutions that work.
Ashden has worked with allies to speak up on the new policies needed to supercharge retrofit – drawing on the proven examples of its award winners and other pioneers. And they’ve joined leading UK charities in the Warm This Winter Campaign, which is pressurising the government to lower energy bills and help those most affected by them.
Ashden will continue to call for change and boost the solutions that can create warmer homes across the UK – while not costing the earth.