Reflexiones finales sobre los llamados “linchamientos” en Guatemala

Technical approach – survey method, monitoring and knowledge sharing.

Carbon Co-op’s unique whole house assessment method is one of its defining features: “Green Deal Assessments are so generic, this is why we need a tailored approach – on this street the houses are exactly the same, but our energy use is completely different. But the RdSAP assessment doesn’t even take into account behaviour. Whereas when you come into peoples’ houses and really understand how people use their homes you can really make a difference to their energy use.” (Board member 1/URBED)

Set against the Green Deal Assessment, which costs approximately £150 and takes approximately two hours, and is based on the BRE’s reduced data Standard Assessment Procedure (RdSAP), the Carbon Co-op survey costs around £450 and takes an entire day to complete. It incorporates a much higher level of individual property-specific detail than the Green Deal approved RdSAP method which bases a lot of its recommendations on

assumptions and standard details. The whole house assessment method has been under continuous review as the Carbon Co-op’s actual retrofits and monitoring proceeded, and

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has been further developed using funding from Innovate UK into a self-assessment online home energy planner’ tool that householders can use themselves, bringing down the cost and time required for the whole house assessment.

The Carbon Co-op’s approach to the technical risks and issues around retrofit concerning mould, damp and build quality were approached in a number of strategic ways. Firstly, by incorporating such a high level of detail and thoroughness into the whole house survey, these issues are intended to be designed out from the start. URBED technical advisors also make specifications for particular products such as porous insulators that are better at preventing mould and damp than non-porous ones, and including a ventilation strategy as part of the assessment. Concerns over the moisture performance of brick slips (placed over external wall insulation to create the illusion of a brick house) precluded URBED and Carbon Co-op from recommending these measures, even when they may assist with planning approval, and they have lobbied GM partners on this issue.

Carbon Co-op also deliberately took a small number of houses and a range of house types, as a way of slowly continuing to test and monitor the design and installation issues involved in a whole suite of measures, rather than rushing into ‘scaling up’ straight away:

“We’re doing a small number of houses, but really, really well” Board Member 2/Project Manager

Incorporating a strong focus on monitoring into the whole process is how Carbon Co-op approached the risk of the ‘performance gap’. This is teamed with incorporating behaviour and occupancy into the survey method, thus allowing a far more accurate picture of what has changed in each house as a result of the retrofit.

Finally, the presentation of survey reports (see Fig 17 below), which includes a glossary and detailed commentary about the specific characteristics of that house and its occupants, and along with support from the Carbon Co-op community regarding the processes and

experiences of retrofit of other householders (peer-to-peer), makes it easier for households to access and understand:

“The thing is that retrofit works – it’s great for reducing energy use. But some of the things you do might create other problems such as how you apply internal wall insulation, there are certain ways that cause condensation to get trapped and can cause damage to the house. There are other ways which might be more complicated

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and expensive but are more foolproof. So it’s also doing things that we can monitor and understand whether it was the right thing to do. There’s a commitment that we don’t just do it and leave. And because it’s us, we are all doing it on our own houses, you can go back and check over a period of years, and the idea is it’s somebody you know.” Board member 5/householder

Figure 17 Carbon Co-op whole house assessment report

Carbon Co-op also alleviates some of the financial and technical decision making elements by sharing technologies such as light fittings (mostly LEDs) and energy monitors, through their community champion household workshops. The LED library gives householders the opportunity to test different light fittings to see if they work with the connection in their homes, rather than purchasing them and risking them being incompatible or impractical. Borrowing LEDs helped two householders to make a decision to replace all their light fittings with LED lights, and combined their purchases to get a 15% discount. Loaning energy

monitors allowed people to identify particular patterns in their household energy use, and select appropriate retrofit measures e.g. discovering that heating costs were higher than the average house of their type, so investing in draughtproofing and later, insulation.

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Addressing householder motivation and engagement

What emerges from the Carbon Co-op’s website and promotional literature, interview and observation data is a strong, consistent vision of the Carbon Co-op’s “peer-to-peer” method of engagement and support in the technical decisions around domestic retrofit, and a shared vision of action on climate change at the household and local level:

There are Green Deal providers who have just been created because people think there is a gap in the market and employment can be created out of it which is no bad thing, but the motivation for that is very different for that is very different to our motivation, which is our homes, and how they can contribute to tackling this massive problem.” Board member 3/Stockport

As previously mentioned, Carbon Co-op’s approach to the varied and complex motives and feelings around retrofit, both positive and negative, is dealt with by focussing on those who are already committed to environmental values and carbon reductions, rather than trying to persuade people to adopt these values, or sell something to those who are not motivated by this.

“Our whole marketing strategy is based on community advocates really. We identify people who are really pro-environmental and want to do the stuff, and get them to spread the word in their local area.” Board member 2/Project manager.

A good example of how this works is shown below:

So because our houses are all identical on our street, and we had an assessment, our next door neighbours wanted to do a bit more, so they had an assessment too, and then a new neighbour two doors down the road also became interested. Then we had a community champion workshop in our house and four neighbours came along, and we realised that because we have to re-felt our roof every seven years and it’s an expense and a hassle, we are looking at possibly doing a street approach. And

Carbon Co-op because of the community gives us better buying power, so we can go to a contractor and say we are not doing one roof we are doing four roofs, so as a street this is working as a really good example of that” Board member 3/Stockport This is not just an avoidance of those who are not already motivated by environmental values or those who are sceptical about retrofit. Engaging already enthusiastic people has a deliberate function in terms of providing demonstrations of retrofit for the wider ‘market’:

“We have always been very clear that we are starting with pioneers – people who already want to do it for reasons that are more connected to the environment. But to go to people who are motivated by money, we have needed these pioneers to test this process – at financial risk – because that is not their primary motive. But they

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can show the savings like I used to spend £600 on gas and now I spend £300.” Board member 4/SliH

6.5 What relationships affected Carbon Co-op’s activities and