Piers Williamson, Chair of SfH, was invited to speak at the Northern Ireland Housing Executive’s (NIHE) Annual Sustainability Symposium in Belfast. Attendees had the chance to hear about the latest sustainability initiatives in Northern Ireland from the largest landlord and strategic housing authority in the region.
More than 80 sustainability specialists from various housing associations, the Northern Ireland Government, and utility and data technology firms gathered to discuss substantial progress already made, and to outline plans for further innovative, large-scale retrofitting efforts.
Alongside the insightful discussions, it was great to hear Grainia Long, the Chief Executive of NIHE, formally launch their membership to Sustainability for Housing.
Below are some of his key thoughts and takeaways from the event:
Climate adaptation and zero carbon focus
With the NIHE having had to respond to three severe storms already this year, climate adaptation and pathways to net zero carbon were key talking points.
The NIHE has completed 1,400 upgrades to non-traditional properties in a £31.5m programme, in which £19.5m came from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). With this programme, the NIHE implemented lessons used by some English landlords, in particularly the finer detail of ensuring external insulation is fully weatherproof to minimise the chance of damp and mould.
Grainia discussed the progress the NIHE had made on its Low Carbon Homes Programme, a £14m investment improving the energy efficiency of homes. So far, it is on the way to retrofitting 400 homes on a whole house approach.
The NIHE revealed another innovative retrofitting effort in a cross Ireland project, where it is piloting a geo-thermal demonstrator project at Cloughfern, called GEMINI. The focus is on educating stakeholders on geothermal as an effective net zero heating source, while also prioritising tenants’ needs and proving the value of these improvements. For more information on the project go to www.geminigeothermal.com.
The importance of cross-regional learning
My session focused on what the rest of the UK and Northern Ireland can learn from each other. The absence of development spending, the need for fire remediation, and its individual scale have allowed the NIHE to focus on improving its stock to help address issues like fuel poverty.
As a smaller country, government and initiatives are more integrated. Hence education, health, housing and entrepreneurship work closer together for combined solutions. This method should be mirrored elsewhere to achieve tangible results.
The role of housing in tech innovation
I had the chance to hear from two founders of tech start-ups explaining the relationship between the housing sector and innovation in technology. Dr Patrick Keatley, founder of Nemo Energy, and Hermione Crease, founder of Purrmetrix, had the opportunity to work with the NIHE as a scale test bed for their digital monitoring, serving as a trial before wider implementation.
The absence of flexible energy tariffs in Northern Ireland makes the exam question for data different. It was interesting to learn how useful collaboration with the NIHE was for both tech start-ups, with Nemo Energy eventually working with Wheatley in Scotland. These were fantastic examples of the sector acting as an incubator for tech development.
This was one of the best retrofit sessions I have ever been to, with a single agenda of making progress and making tenants’ lives better.
