North Devon Homes

Sector: Housing 

Number of employees: 100 

Region of UK: South West 

Summary

Global Action Plan is an environmental charity that focuses on environmental behaviour change and provides planning and advice for SMEs. Their client North Devon Homes recruited the Envision team to help assess energy, water and resource use against good practice and identify where environmental and cost savings could most easily be achieved.  

Background

• Housing association set up to manage former North Devon District Council housing stock
• £11m turnover
• Manage 3,100 properties

How They Do It

• Completed an energy review and helped develop an environmental policy for the business resulting in significant financial and environmental savings
• Undertook research into construction materials to reduce maintenance and repair costs of future housing stock
• Delivered training for staff, enabling them to implement environmental improvement plans and work with tenants to put changes in place

What Impact It Has

• Major cost-savings resulting in lower bills for tenants after introduction of energy efficient building techniques and environmental procurement policy
• Significant reduction in CO2 emissions from all housing stock achieved by fitting double glazing, wall and loft insulation, condensing heating boilers and low energy light bulbs
• £1,000s saved through use of timber frame homes providing design flexibility, rapid construction and reduced long-term running costsTimber framed homes manufactured off-site from renewable materials producing highly insulated, energy efficient homes
• Achieved significant improvement in energy efficiency rating by national housing industry body; ratings increased by ten points to 67 points, five points higher than industry average

Opportunities for future development

• Opportunity to work with other housing associations to build timber framed homes based on sustainability/energy efficiency principlesCarry out further work with staff and tenants to change the culture of North Devon Homes and enhance the organisation’s environmental credentials
• Working towards achieving recognised national environmental standards (Environmental Management System BS 8555)

Quote

“By making practical environmental changes we’ve saved money and made measurable reductions in energy use”   

John Keyes, Director, North Devon Homes