Housing policies

Introduction

We carried out a survey for tenants and leaseholders to have their say on sustainability within RBKC housing. Your opinions have informed the Strategy and helped us make recommendations for how we can support, empower and work together with residents to tackle environment-related issues in our housing stock.

We know climate change and sustainability are important to our residents, and we want to demonstrate our commitment to taking action and supporting residents in reducing carbon emissions and living in greener and healthier ways.

To show how we plan to act in the face of the climate emergency, Housing Management have developed a Sustainability and Fuel Poverty Strategy, as a first step towards working together on improving sustainability and energy efficiency on our estates.

Our vision

Our vision is to achieve net zero carbon emissions in our housing stock by 2030 and reduce fuel poverty among our residents.

Our priorities

• To reduce our carbon footprint, from both our own and our contractors’ operations in order to support the Council to achieve its net zero ambition for council housing and our corporate buildings.
• To empower and support our tenants and leaseholders to reduce their own carbon footprint in their homes, and their environmental impact in their local areas and day- to-day lives.

Strategy objectives

We have defined nine areas of sustainability that we, as Housing Management, can focus on to improve energy efficiency and environmental outcomes.

Energy and fuel poverty

To improve the energy efficiency of our housing stock and to ensure our residents are able to live in adequately warm homes at an affordable cost, we will.

• review the 2021-22 capital works programme ahead of its start date, to identify opportunities for energy-efficiency improvements
• minimise the environmental impact of the building works for our new social homes and ensure that these allow residents to easily reduce their carbon footprint and save money on heating costs

Responding and adapting to climate change

To tackle the effects of extreme weather events and changing weather  patterns by making our estates more resistant to flood risk and hot weather, we will:

• review the resilience of estate  drainage systems to extreme weather events  and investigate opportunities to install sustainable urban drainage systems and rain gardens as part of any planned works to hard landscapes on estates
• make resilience to hot and cold weather a priority for new and existing homes through our building fabric works on energy efficiency and fuel poverty

Air Quality

To reduce the amount of air pollution produced by our housing stock and operations, we will:

• make air pollution and carbon emissions a key consideration as we investigate the best solutions for boiler replacements and upgrades in Council homes, which will include exploring the possible use of ultra-low NOx boilers
• investigate the feasibility of installing electric vehicle charging points on our estates as part of our parking review and assess resident requests for new charging points

Transport

To support the Council’s commitment to reduce motor traffic by encouraging greener modes of transport on and around our estates. we will

• promote cycling among our residents, encourage our residents to receive cycle training, and increase the volume of secure cycle parking on our estates
• assist Transport colleagues in implementing walking and cycling schemes that support our estates and housing stock

Waste management 

To reduce waste and increase recycling in our estates and operations, including  in our procurement arrangements, we will:

• review and investigate  ways to improve waste and recycling infrastructure at all sites that use communal bins, to make recycling easier
• promote and support the development of community garden and food waste composting initiatives and other waste reduction community activities, such as repair workshops and zero waste event days

Water management

To promote and enable water saving in our estates, we will: 

• encourage the early  reporting of leaks.
• work with Groundwork London through the Green Doctors home energy visits and telephone consultations, to promote and install water saving devices such as water hippos and aerated taps.

Green Neighbourhoods and Communities

To work with the community to enable resident-led change in carbon footprint reduction and creating greener neighbourhoods, through initiatives such as local growing projects and community kitchen areas, we will:

• provide information to residents on ways to make sustainable choices and support residents who want to work towards green outcomes. We will support residents to take an active role and to implement community-led initiatives linked to raising awareness and increasing sustainability on our estates
• research opportunities for grants and support residents to seek funding for improvements to their own estates

Ecology and increasing biodiversity

To work with residents to increase biodiversity on our estates, we will:

• support the Council’s commitment to ensure that biodiversity is improved, and not damaged by new build and refurbishment works, by facilitating the delivery of the Council’s upcoming Biodiversity Action Plan, and by specifying appropriate protection measures during future construction works
• investigate the feasibility of installing green roofs and walls as part of new build programmes and retrofit works

Housing Management operations

To improve the way we work in order to become more sustainable, both in our own operations and 
throughout our supply chain, ensuring that our contractors are also embedding environmental 
sustainability and climate change across their operations, we will:

• develop a programme of carbon reduction in the way  we work, ensuring all staff 'do their bit' to reduce energy  consumption by adopting sustainable habits
• produce a 'sustainable tips' guide for contractors and suppliers, to ensure  they deliver environmental best practice on our behalf, and they keep us informed about improvements and changes to their service delivery