Rowena Claydon-Smith, Head of Low Carbon Retrofit at Abri, speaks at the National Housing Forum about one of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing housing today: transitioning to a low-carbon future through retrofitting existing homes.
Collaboration is key
Retrofitting is a complex task, from tackling issues like asbestos in homes, to introducing modern, zero-emission heating systems. It’s a journey that is especially difficult when taken alone.
I’m proud of the success The Greener Futures Partnership (GFP), a consortium of five large housing associations including Abri, has and continues to achieve so far. Through this collaboration, we’ve already secured over £40 million from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) Wave 2.1. We were able to use that funding to retrofit more than 5,600 homes with measures such as insulation upgrades, air-source heat pumps, solar PV, and improved ventilation. These upgrades have enabled thousands more families to live in a warmer home, with stable energy bills and lower carbon emissions.
This is what collaboration makes possible. By pooling our resources, sharing expertise and uniting around a common purpose, the GFP has created a blueprint for sector-wide transformation.
And our work doesn’t stop there. The GFP continues to share data and best practice, including new research into digital sensors and performance monitoring, to better understand retrofit outcomes and continually refine our approach.
Building the capacity and skills to deliver
Retrofitting at scale also means building capacity within our organisation and across our supply chain and sector.
Together with Echelon Consultancy, the GFP created a Decarbonisation Delivery Framework, a one-stop shop for retrofit works that is flexible, scalable, and designed to help meet the government’s 2030 EPC targets.
We’ve also launched a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) to complement the framework. It’s open to everyone and supports a wide range of products and services that enable carbon-reducing projects.
These frameworks don’t just make procurement for retrofit simpler and easier, they also create local jobs, train new talent, and embed sustainability into every stage of the retrofit process.
Three key things every retrofit programme needs to succeed
In addition to collaboration and capacity, to truly succeed, all retrofit projects must prioritise three key things: a data-driven understanding of every property, customer engagement and an awareness of any vulnerabilities.
- Using data to inform our decisions
Successful retrofitting starts with understanding our homes and the people who live in them.
That’s why we’re committed to data-driven decision making. By surveying every property and collecting detailed performance data, we can build a full picture of our stock’s condition, structure, ventilation and energy performance. You can’t retrofit what you don’t understand, and having good-quality data enables us to identify where interventions will make the biggest difference.
Whilst data is technical in many ways, we need to ensure it’s also personal. Collecting qualitative data on how our customers experience retrofit including what worked well, any challenges, and ways we can improve can achieve this. Combining our quantitative data with our qualitative data creates a full picture and guides us towards smarter, fairer decisions.
- Putting customers at the heart of retrofit
Customers aren’t just recipients of retrofit, they’re co-creators. They know their homes better than anyone as they live with the drafts and the cold spots, meaning they have a lot of insight to offer us.
At Abri, we engage with our customers from day one, hold regular meetings, share clear information through letters and leaflets, and follow up with handovers and feedback surveys.
Retrofit is disruptive, but a commitment to transparency, trust, and two-way communication goes a long way in making customers feel informed, listened to, and supported.
- Understanding and supporting all our customers
Some households face additional vulnerabilities whether due to health, mobility, or financial challenges. Which is why retrofit should prioritise those most at risk- whilst one person living in a colder, less energy-efficient home might feel uncomfortable, these circumstances could be dangerous to another.
That’s why we spend a lot of time at the beginning of each retrofit project assessing and understanding the individual circumstances of each of our customers before we begin the works. We need the full picture before we can begin, so we do this by cross-referencing our in-house data with input from front-line staff and contractors. This ensures every household gets the right support, and that interventions are tailored each individual customer’s needs.
Looking Ahead
By prioritising data, customers, and vulnerability awareness, we can fully harness the benefits of collaboration, and the ever-increasing capacity and skills in the sector to deliver a truly successful retrofit programme.
It’s through partnerships like the Greener Futures Partnership, that we can set the benchmark for sustainable, data-driven and customer-focused retrofit
At Abri, we believe retrofit isn’t just a technical mission. It’s a moral one. Retrofitting is about improving lives, protecting our planet, and ensuring that every home is fit for the future. We’re proud to say that we, and other housing associations are not just responding to a generational challenge, we’re leading it.