Our new climate commitment
This article was written by Dasos Christou, our executive director (customer relations) about Silva Homes’ commitment to addressing climate change.
As a housing association, our decisions not only affect our customers and our colleagues - they also affect the planet. Everything we do has an impact on the environment, from the way we work, to how we build and maintain our homes. That's why housing makes up 19% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions.
We exist as a social business for the benefit of the community and do so by investing in homes and supporting people, but we cannot do this if our actions damage the planet. It is crucial that we make our business more sustainable now if we are to meet the net-zero target by 2050. So we are investing in actions and resources that will make a real difference.
Building a more sustainable business
We are currently reviewing our strategy and intend to make climate change a strategic priority. This will enable us to build more sustainable behaviours and practices into the business, which is a huge step for Silva and one that I'm really excited about.
We recently hosted a climate change workshop in which all Silva colleagues were invited to take part. In the workshop, steps that Silva could take to reduce its carbon footprint were discussed and we gained valuable feedback that will help us build our climate change strategy. Our customer partnership board will also have the same discussions in the next couple of weeks. As well as these workshops, we also invited all of our customers to share their ideas on how we can reduce our carbon footprint.
A £1 million budget to reduce our carbon footprint
The Silva board has agreed to commit £1 million over the next three years to work on a series of research projects to help us understand the best way to decarbonise and improve the thermal efficiency of our existing properties. They will also help us look at ways to reduce our wider carbon footprint and support sustainable behaviours for people in our communities.
Creating new environmental partnerships
We will partner with other housing associations to help influence the government and make sure it recognises the need to address social housing's carbon footprint. This will help us get more support from national and local decision-makers and empower us to do even more for the planet.
You can find out more about our new strategy and commitment to climate change by watching the recording of our recent customer webinar.