Nottingham green housing project will be showcased at COP26

A project to transform some of Nottingham’s hardest to heat council houses into energy efficient homes has been chosen to be showcased at COP26.

The project is one of 17 projects worldwide that will be shown at the conference in Glasgow, alongside projects from Norway, Brazil and New Zealand.

The housing project aims to make sure homes are suitable for the future by ensuring they are low carbon or near net-zero, bringing down energy bills and reducing fuel poverty.

The selected schemes will be part of the UK Built Environment Virtual Pavilion, organised by the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC).

Nottingham City Council’s deputy leader and portfolio holder for energy and environment and waste services, Cllr Sally Longford, said: ‘I am delighted that NCH2050 has been selected as just one of five UK projects to be showcased at COP26. Nottingham was the first UK city to use the Energiesprong method and since then, many other UK projects have followed in our footsteps after seeing the success of the project here and in the Netherlands.

‘Nottingham as a city is dedicated to cutting carbon emissions, with a goal of becoming the first UK city to be carbon neutral by 2028. We are making great progress, with a wide range of schemes including our fantastic sustainable transport network already bringing down our CO2 emissions per capita by 52.3% since 2005 – the highest reduction of any UK core city. The NCH2050 project plays an important part in that and I am glad that people from across the world will get to see the real difference this project is making at COP26.’

Nick Murphy, chief executive at Nottingham City Homes, added: ‘To be just one of 17 projects worldwide to be chosen for the UN showcasing shows what an impactful project NCH2050 is. We are making improvements to cold, hard to heat council homes, transforming them to make them warmer, bringing down bills for our tenants and helping to reduce carbon emissions. It really is an honour to be showcased alongside some of the best projects across the world, projects that are making a real difference to the environment. We hope that others around the world will see the benefits of this project and they too will look at ways of transforming older, colder homes in their cities – why demolish homes and rebuild when you can upgrade and improve them with home energy retrofits.’

In related news, ahead of the launch of a report that finds 59% of UK organisations will miss the government’s 2050 net zero targets, Chloe Coules speaks to Dr Chris Brauer and Microsoft about what is preventing action on climate change.

Photo supplied by Nottingham City Council