Manchester’s Council Environment and Climate Change Scrutiny Committee received a report detailing a plan that commits to retrofitting the city’s housing to a low carbon standard. This will help advance the city’s plans of reaching their zero-carbon target by 2038.
The proposed plan includes a roadmap of how the city will over come certain challenges and date achievements- but overall urges the council on the importance of collaborating with local housing providers to improve energy efficiency of the regions homes and move away from fossil fuel-based heating elements within homes.
This comes as a result of the councils plans of:
· Becoming a zero-carbon city by 2038.
· Wanting to reduce the councils direct CO2emissions by 50% by 2025.
· Aiming to retrofit at least one third of all social housing (70,000 homes) by 2032. This retrofit would include 60% of15,700 council-owned homes also).
Cllr Tracey Rawlins, Manchester City Council’s executive member for environment has explained, “We need to act now- alongside our partners in the public and private sector- to meet this target, but these investments are also needed to support our residents through the ongoing, unprecedented cost-of-living and energy crisis.”
What is the importance of focusing on property?
A report from The Manchester Climate Change Framework 2022has estimated that housing produces up to 30% of Manchester’s total carbon emissions. So, by reducing energy consumption through retrofitting, the proposal attacks a large player of the increasing carbon emissions.
Thankfully, this also has a positive effect on residents, which will benefit from reduced energy bills during a cost-of-living crisis, ultimately leading to better living standards and improving the health of existing housing stock for future generations.
As of 2022, £83 million has been invested in energy efficient improvements to council properties in North Manchester, this has directly led to a 49% reduction in CO2 emissions- equating to a reduction from55,000 tonnes of CO2 to 28,000).
Another benefit from these decisions is the direct influence on residents’ expenditure on energy. From the implementation of energy advice to residents in 2013, the region has estimated that they have saved 2,100residents £370,000 and 500 tonnes of CO2.
Manchester City Council’s executive member for housing and development, Cllr Gavin White went on record to explain the added benefit of employment opportunities in related energy industries, “There is also a secondary opportunity to support the city’s economy as these works represent long-term employment opportunities and it’s important that we can help our residents gain the necessary retrofit skills and ensure they can take advantage of the incoming jobs.”
