Creating healthier, warmer and more affordable buildings
Buildings play a vital role in Cumbria’s journey to net zero. Improving energy efficiency, adopting low carbon heating and creating sustainable new developments can reduce emissions, lower energy bills and improve comfort for residents and businesses.
The Buildings Sector Group has been formed to create and steer Emissions Reduction Action Plans with the goal of achieving a carbon net zero Cumbria by 2037.
Cumbria faces some unique challenges when it comes to reducing emissions from buildings.
Many properties are older and less energy efficient. Large numbers of homes and businesses are located in rural areas and are not connected to the gas grid, relying instead on fossil fuels such as heating oil. At the same time, the county needs new homes and commercial buildings that are fit for a low carbon future.
According to EPC data, around 65% of Cumbrian properties with an EPC rating are below EPC C, highlighting the scale of the retrofit challenge.
Alongside reducing emissions, improving buildings can:
Our ‘scope’ covers the full lifecycle of new and existing buildings, from maintenance and utilities to construction, demolition and retrofitting.
All energy-related household emissions from new and existing houses. These could be from heating, property maintenance and appliances to utilities like the water supply. Emissions from the construction and demolition processes are within this area along with emissions from retrofitting properties.
Emissions from all public and commercial buildings. From heating, appliances, maintenance and utilities to construction, demolition and retrofitting older properties.
Reducing emissions from buildings will require changes to existing buildings, heating systems and future developments. The sector group’s suggested approach to tackling these emissions has been split across four strategic priorities, which you can explore below.
Upgrade
Decarbonise
Standardise
Support
Looking for more detail?
You can see the full list of recommendations the Sector Group have put forward for businesses, local authorities, communities and individuals to help achieve each of these priorities in the Buildings ERAP below. See where you might be able to help!
The Emissions Reduction Pathway document sets out the strategic direction to reduce carbon emissions.
The Emissions Reduction Action Plan (ERAP) document sets out detailed proposed actions for emissions reduction.
Buildings
Success stories from across Cumbria showing how steps are being taken to reduce carbon emissions from buildings.
The Buildings Sector Group brings together organisations and individuals involved in designing, constructing, managing and operating buildings across Cumbria.
The group helps shape priorities, develop action plans and identify opportunities for collaboration that support the county’s net zero ambitions.
Sector group members meet frequently throughout the year, usually online. Meeting overviews will be shared below.
A new retrofit toolkit has been developed to support prioritisation and, hopefully, investment in retrofit activity in Cumbria. The model provides a cost-benefit analysis of upgrading a range of Cumbrian home archetypes, showing which homes would deliver the greatest impact in terms of cost savings, carbon reduction, or both, against the cost of implementation. This was a key action for the group, and it is great to see it completed. The Futureproof Retrofit team is also developing resources to help the public understand what they can do to make their homes more comfortable, save money, and move away from fossil fuels.
The group also met with Anna Moore from Domna Homes, who chairs the National Retrofit Hub Finance Group. Building on the finance briefing paper webinar held earlier in the year, Anna explained the importance of understanding the home and its data points first, so that grants and investment can be guided by evidence rather than the other way round. This helps ensure better cost control, more targeted funding, and proportionate decision-making. Anna also spoke about proven models for private investment, and how financed schemes for social or low-income homes can also help deliver better value for able-to-pay customers, as has happened elsewhere. This gave the group useful food for thought about how to take forward work with those able to progress it.
New builds have also featured on recent agendas, with partner member Story Homes helping the group to unpick what the recently published Future Homes Standard means for new homes in Cumbria. We also invited smaller building contractors to help us understand the challenges involved in delivering smaller developments with higher environmental performance than both current and incoming standards. Although none were able to attend the meeting, we will continue trying to engage them. If any building organisations would like to be involved in that discussion, please email buildings@zerocarboncumbria.co.uk.
Priorities:
1 – Improve and increase public understanding of retrofit activity and its benefits for both homeowners and the construction sector by reframing the narrative around comfort and financial benefits. Use case studies to highlight positive results and help counter misinformation. Support Futureproof with its work on archetypes and likely retrofit pathways, and consider methods for gathering and analysing data to widen the profile of retrofit in Cumbria. Ultimately, this should contribute to a framework for a Cumbrian retrofit hub.
2 – Understand the skills challenge and identify solutions to improve building stock through both new build and retrofit. This includes helping to address the skills gap, understanding why upskilling is not always happening, and supporting local retrofit hub plans. It should also include more input from the National Retrofit Hub and progress on the policy paper it has put forward. Support councils to ensure they make the most of grant schemes to strengthen the local supply chain and skills market, and are ready for any additional funding opportunities, such as Warm Homes Skills Grants.
3 – Finalise the buildings retrofit toolkit and use the findings to prioritise retrofit action, while developing a small group to consider next steps and link these to discussions about finance opportunities, as highlighted in the National Retrofit Hub presentation.
The group have reflected on the comments from the Summit held in early March, and have been working on amendments to the asks to Government and the recommendations from the SOB to clarify the barrier to be overcome. The group are also building on the work in the Emissions Reduction Pathway (ERP) to develop a Buildings sector profile to sit alongside the asks of Government. This will outline why some of the asks are overcoming barriers that are specifically (more) challenging for Cumbria. You can find a report from the sector group workshops at the summit here.
The first collaborative retrofit event for building owners, building trades and the Lakes College was held in April, with over 40 people attending. A number of building efficiency related webinars have also been delivered in partnership with Futureproof Cumbria. The sector group also worked with Curtins to deliver the second low carbon construction event in the autumn, with 80 representatives from the commercial construction world, planning and supply chains.
Andrea Howe, Energy Project Officer from Cosy Homes in Lancashire (CHiL) gave an overview of how they work with Local Authorities to deliver energy efficiency through grants, as well offering a universal retrofit advice service as the “one stop shop for warmth”. Next step is to see how we can develop something similar for Cumbria.
The group have had an update from the Retrofit Housing Manager from Westmorland and Furness Council (WFC) on the Warm Homes Grants. WFC lead on the bid for both authorities for the Local grant, and also apply on behalf of a consortium for the Social grant. The group now have an understanding of the process and the opportunity for building the profile of retrofit through these grants, and will continue to work with WFC to link the grant work with supply chain and training development. This will also help the wider embedding of retrofit practice.
Rob Hargreaves from the National Retrofit Hub gave a presentation on workforce growth and skills development from Working Group 3: Skills and Development, which he co-chairs. They have just published a white paper. You can see Rob’s presentation here. It gives a summary of the work the working group have been doing which has resulted in their latest report: Policy Recommendations for a National Retrofit Workforce Strategy – National Retrofit Hub.
Andrew Pinches from Rossendale Valley Energy gave a presentation on the Net Zero Terraced Streets project. He highlighted the progress, learning and opportunities from this Innovate UK funded scheme. You can find out more about the project here.
The group are considering an offer from Cumbria Education Development Centre (CDEC) about involvement of young people in sector group plan communication, including “public proofing” elements of the action plans/asks, meeting with a Sector Group representative to talk about emissions reduction and the sector plans, and the Sector Group being involved in young people running events in schools around low carbon buildings.
The group will be reviewing the progression of ERAP actions in preparation for a Year 1 Progress Report and thinking about potential topics for the Summit in 2026.
If you feel you’d have something to contribute to a sector group meeting, get in touch to request an invite.
The Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership is driving change through the work of its four Sector Groups, which focus on the main sources of emissions in Cumbria.
To get involved and find out more about the Partnership, please contact Partnership Manager, Michael Robinson.
