Sowing the seeds
We estimate that the properties under our management use nearly 6,000,000kWh of energy p.a.. That’s a staggering amount and estimated to be over 1,000,000 tonnes of CO2 a year1.
It is clear we could have a significant impact by making our properties more energy efficient both in terms of saving money for our tenants and minimising the subsequent environmental damage.
Our plans to do this need to involve all the stakeholders involved in our properties and anyone who interacts with them. This means we will not only be aiming for change from our tenants, but also from our landlords, as well as our own staff - be that decisions made by our property management department or the maintenance team.
We have already briefed our landlords that sustainability will be at the core of all our decisions going forward. Our processes and recommendations will always be influenced by the desire to reduce energy consumption and any environmental impact. We have informed them that we will be making recommendations for improvements beyond basic maintenance that will improve the efficiency and building health of their properties. This is also being made clear to any new landlords we take on board from this point. Regardless whether the proposed minimum EPC rating of C for new rentals in 2025 goes ahead or not, we are aiming for all our properties to meet that requirement by that time. Our hope is that we can start leveraging collective procurement and financing options to make energy efficient improvements more affordable and significantly reduce the return-on-investment timelines in the light of a lack of government incentives at this current time.
For our tenants, we have employed the services of Students Organising for Sustainability, a student-led education charity. They have developed a programme that they will help run throughout the academic year designed to engage our tenants and help them keep their bills low and reduce their carbon footprint through meaningful and effective change. Their programme will consist of providing the right information at the right time for our tenants, running webinars and workshops and organising competitions throughout the year. We'll be providing prizes ranging from sustainable and helpful gifts to significant cash rewards for the most engaged individuals and households. We'll be publishing more details of this programme as it happens on this page, so please come back often to see what's happening.
We've started and will be providing ongoing training for our staff members to help them make educated decisions on what will be the best maintenance practice and procurement process for our properties. Even though we will be making changes in our offices to reduce our carbon footprint, any reductions here will pale in significance compared to what we can do with our properties so this will always be where we focus our resources.
We're excited to see the changes we can make and start developing methods of quantifying the changes we make so that we can report back to our tenants, our landlords and the wider community. Please watch this space for more information on how we're doing.
