So, we are doing well. Yes. But we all know a lot more needs to be done.

Broadacres started its journey to net zero two years ago. In all honesty this was driven by our customers and was really a focus on affordable warmth, rather than sustainability. Customers told us they were cold in their homes and as we delved deeper, we concluded this was about the poor thermal and heating efficiency, and the cost of energy for customers. We decided if we made our homes more efficient customers would need to use less energy, which would save money, but would also contribute to reducing carbon emissions and that began our journey.

For me there are really three big questions:

1. What do we need to do to our homes to achieve the net-zero target and does the tech exist?
2. How do we pay for the work?
3. How do we start?

On the first question we bought a tool, Chrome. We input our existing data and collected a lot of new information about our homes beyond that collected in the usual surveys. This gave us a picture of our homes and what needed to be done to them. The tool also enabled us to run ‘what if’ scenarios so we could see where we would get the biggest bang for our spend.

On the second question, we don’t have all the money to pay for this work but our board took the view that we needed to future-proof our homes as without this expenditure we risked having undesirable homes that perhaps were no longer usable as security for borrowing. As 2050 approaches any new long-term funding might become dependent on meeting energy efficiency levels.

Finally, how to start. We could wait for the full master plan to be developed, funding arranged and then start. But that felt wrong and developing a master plan would take a long time. Customers are cold now and whatever we planned, the technology will evolve and change that plan. So, we adopted the phrase:

Think BIG Start SMALL Act NOW

Our ACT NOW has meant that nearly 300 homes have been upgraded to SAP C. Customer satisfaction with those homes has increased significantly and as we look to borrow new funds our funders are very positive about our investment.

I don’t pretend we have discovered the panacea to a difficult problem but as the saying goes – how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. This is our bite.