How residents are shaping sustainable living

This not only helps protect the environment by reducing carbon emissions, but also ensures our residents benefit from warmer, more comfortable homes and significantly lower energy bills.

Fast forward to 2025, and we’ve self-funded three retrofit programmes in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and from 2022 to date, completed retrofit programmes part-funded through government grants such as Green Homes, the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) 3 and ECO 4, and the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.

We’ve retrofitted 1,903 homes and completed an additional 4,228 measures, including cavity-wall insulation, loft insulation, air-source heat pumps, solar panels and ventilation strategies.

We have not been on the journey alone. In fact, it’s our residents who are shaping sustainable living.

Residents know their home and community best, so they’ve been involved from the start. We’ve hosted in-person retrofit roadshows across London and the Isle of Wight, giving residents whose homes are scheduled for improvement work the opportunity to meet our planning and delivery teams, retrofit assessors and installers. Attendees could also view samples of the building materials that would be used.

Residents asked questions about how long the work would take and what disruption they might notice. They had the option to get involved in local sustainability projects to help their communities, and were asked for ideas for future projects they’d like to see.

The uptake on our roadshows told us our residents had a real thirst for knowledge about how these changes would impact not only them, but their environment.

Now the residents of the homes on which we’ve completed works feel so involved in the process that they participate in case-study videos to encourage other residents to get on board. It’s a full-circle moment, and hearing real-life success stories, like that of David, a resident who has saved so much money on his energy bills that he’s been able to take his son on holiday, is a reminder of why this journey is so important.

Resident involvement in our retrofit roadshows was incredibly impactful. So, in April 2024, we set up our sustainability champions, a group of residents with a passion for promoting the green agenda, especially a reduction in carbon emissions. We look to them to help us communicate with the residents in their neighbourhoods.

Sustainability champions represent the voices of our residents. Without them, our communications on climate change, retrofitting and biodiversity could feel one-directional. But now, we’ve started a conversation. They’ve provided valued input into our initiatives, design of our projects, communications campaigns, policies and procedures. They keep the conversation about the importance of sustainability in housing going.

We’re on the journey to improving our homes, cleaning our green spaces and helping our planet. Our residents are not only on board, they’re in the driving seat, shaping what the homes of tomorrow will look like.

Jo Butterfield, sustainability engagement lead, Southern Housing