Be mine?

Things to do

• Establish a plan to make communications clear.
• Engage early - so residents are committed. The easiest time is when they move in.
• Find out how disruptive having improvement work will be, make sure expectations are realistic.
• Talk to residents across different ages, areas, schemes and cultures - including those who do not want to engage.
• Involve tenants in green teams within housing associations. The easiest way to involve them is for residents to engage other residents.
• Integrate environmental goals into the company’s strategy and consult residents.
• Get the day-to-day stuff right before attempting to engage tenants, otherwise you won’t be trusted or listened to.
• Use existing networks, such as raising awareness among children through schools, or use the parish council or residents’ association.
• Green initiatives should be bottom-up. For example, start with community projects.
• Identify issues that are important to residents but which may not affect climate change. Highlight the cost-saving opportunities.
• Give residents opportunity to be involved and flexibility in their level of involvement.
• Personal, local engagement works best.

Things to avoid

• Not listening to residents or getting enough feedback.
• Starting on projects without working out how they will be funded or staffed long-term.
• Over-committing or taking on too much.
• Preaching to residents.
• Too much technical information.
• Doom and gloom.
• Setting unrealistic expectations of what the landlord can do.
• Letting dominant characters take over.

Incentives game

Metropolitan Housing Partnership, a SHIFT member, has put fuel poverty at the heart of its campaign for more sustainable living. By talking in pounds and pence, rather than emissions and tonnes of carbon Matthew Bush, sustainability manager at MHP, wanted to use language that would grab tenants’ interest.

‘Focus on fuel poverty not green issues, because that makes a difference to tenants’ lives,’ he says. ‘Keep it simple.’

MHP consulted its resident readers panel on a new leaflet that cut the size of the previous energy advice booklet from 18 pages to two sides, without losing the basic information on changing lightbulbs, drying clothes outside and turning down the thermostat.

It also developed an e-learning fuel poverty module for all staff, so they were on board and trained to advise residents.

Tenants have reported saving up to 17 per cent on energy costs as a result of using the advice in the booklet, at a cost to MHP of only £5,450. Nearly 100 resident ‘green champions’ were also recruited through the resident involvement survey sent out with the advice leaflet and MHP is planning to use the e-learning to train them to give advice to friends and neighbours.

On the ground

What tenants at the SHIFT event had to say about going green

• To me, greening means doing something useful, such as growing veg. We should be showing children that carrots don’t just come from Tesco.
• We were already doing a lot - heavy curtains, turning things off at the wall. We’ve got common sense!
• I like the scheme where someone comes round and looks at your loft, at your boiler, it is a one-to-one.
• That really annoyed me, when it was top-down.
• Make sure that you involve everyone, from elderly people down to kids.
• The issues should be explained in an impartial and non-political way. Don’t guilt-trip people into engagement, don’t over-complicate things.