Energy efficiency upskilling for social investors

ACCESS – the Foundation for Social Investment has contracted the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) to deliver an upskilling programme on energy efficiency for social investors, running from January 2024 to March 2025. This was one of the market needs identified during the consultation process for ACCESS’s £12m allocated from Dormant Assets to support the sector with energy efficiency.

When we improve the energy efficiency of a non-domestic building this can encompass a wide range of measures and interventions, ranging from basic works such as the installation of loft insulation or smart heating controls, to bigger projects like new windows, solid wall insulation, or low carbon heating systems. In order to design an upskilling programme that meets the needs of its target audience (you!), we would greatly appreciate your time to answer this survey. We want to understand what your current knowledge is of, for example, energy efficiency measures (to the degree that is relevant to your role in investment decision-making) and the topic areas for which additional information, resources and training would be considered most useful. It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes to complete the survey. Thank you in advance for your time.

The Centre for Sustainable Energy (www.cse.org.uk) is a Bristol-based charity working on the twin challenges of tackling climate change and ending the suffering caused by cold homes. If you have any questions about this survey and the wider upskilling programme, or if you have supplementary information that you would like to email alongside completing this survey, please be in touch with Harriet Sansom (harriet.sansom@cse.org.uk).

Prior to making retrofit changes to a building, it is important that essential repairs and maintenance are carried out. Maintenance is the easiest way to improve comfort and energy efficiency levels in a building. And as the first step in the retrofit journey, it will ensure the full benefit of the retrofit changes are captured, and that there are no unintended consequences.

Managing energy and heat in a non-domestic building, like a community building, can be a particular challenge. Every building will have multiple different uses, be running with different budgets and capacities, be of different construction types, and have had different changes made to them over the years (to differing standards!). This means each building will require a bespoke solution.

Low-carbon heating options are those that: 1) Directly use non-fossil fuel based energy; examples include: solar thermal water heating, biomass or wood boilers 2) Are electric and therefore have the potential to not be fossil fuel-based (i.e. they can run off electricity generated by renewable sources, rather than electricity generated via the burning or combustion of fossil fuels); examples include: air, ground and water-source heat pumps.

Renewable energy generation is where electricity is generated through renewable sources. More generally these sources include: wind, wave, tidal, hydro, geothermal and solar. When we’re looking at renewable options for a building, this is predominantly solar in the form of photovoltaic panels (although you can also get building-mounted micro wind turbines).

When making changes to a building to improve its energy efficiency, there are risks that will need to be identified and processes put in place to mitigate these. When changing the fabric of a building, the headline risk is damp. But there are other risks, and these will vary depending on the building type, age, location and how it is used.

The use of experienced tradespeople (with experience that is relevant to the specific building type) is a way through which to reduce risk. There are various methods for finding a good tradesperson, including getting recommendations from others.

In addition to our training sessions we propose developing resources covering specific topics, to support your learning from our sessions. These resources could be in the form of: written guides, short videos, or case studies.