This project ran for two years, from March 2023-March 2025. The aim was to share home energy efficiency and retrofit advice more widely, working with local community organisations to engage residents, through in-person events and sharing energy advice. This empowered local organisations to become facilitators of retrofit and energy advice. 

The Local Energy Advice Demonstrator (LEAD) project was one of 36 government-funded pilot schemes to provide in-person energy advice. CSE lead the project in the West of England area and a second project in Swindon and Wiltshire.

Our partners were Bath and West Community Energy (BWCE), Bristol Energy Network (BEN) and the South West Net Zero Hub.

With these organisations’ expertise in retrofit and energy efficiency advice and their local knowledge, we were able to engage with community groups to give homeowners the tools they need to embark on their home improvement journeys.

This includes facilitating Green Open Homes events to inspire the community in their retrofit journeys and help them access ongoing retrofit support and home assessments.

Fixing barriers to local retrofit

The project supported hard-to-reach households and hard-to-treat properties that may have previously been excluded from retrofit conversations. What do we mean by this?

• Hard-to-reach households can mean those who are particularly isolated or rural or digitally excluded. But it also includes people who don’t know what ‘retrofit’ means or who feel they are unable to make significant home improvements. This can be because of concern around costs, lack of confidence or worries about the disruption caused by building work.

• Hard-to-treat homes are those that aren’t typically thought of as eligible for retrofit, for example, older or listed buildings, park homes, off-gas homes, or homes in conservation areas.

Our approach was to focus on providing in-person advice and sharing real-life examples of successful retrofit – especially in older or quirkier buildings – to inspire others. Working closely with our partners and community groups, we met people where they are to include members of the community who may not be aware of the steps they can take.

Community-led approach

Throughout the project CSE’s communities team engaged with local communities in many different ways.

• We worked with and trained up community groups so that they could share energy saving and retrofit advice locally. This included providing resources and supporting them with local activities.
• CSE and community groups hosted Green Open Home and ‘not-yet-green’ Open Home events. These events give people an opportunity to tour their neighbour’s homes to see what energy efficiency upgrades have been installed, or to explore potential ones. We found that these events sparked a lot of insightful conversations and highlighted the fact that every home is different, no home is perfect, and allowed for open and honest conversations.
• We ran free training events for homeowners, giving them a crash course in suitable ways to retrofit their homes. We focused on older, traditional homes and what homeowners need to consider before embarking on a retrofit journey.
• We provided free and discounted energy efficiency surveys so people can take the best first step to understanding their home and suitable improvements.
• We shared free resources to engage people of all ages. This included our Sherlock Homes activity pack for young children to investigate their own home and potential upgrades.

‘Not-yet-green’ open homes

Through this project, CSE learnt a lot about how to discuss retrofit in a way that makes it feel achievable. We know that often people can be put off because it seems like too big of a job and they’re not sure where to start.

The ‘not yet green’ open home approach was developed during this project. Previously, CSE has run multiple green open home events, which is where retrofitted homes are made available to view. Homeowners discuss the changes they’ve made and the benefits.

During the LEAD project, CSE also showcased ‘not yet green’ open homes, or homes that have had no or minimum upgrades. This allowed attendees to walk around a home and see any problem areas that needed fixing. This approach was really successful because:

• People witnessed imperfect homes, which more accurately represented their own. They shared some of the same problems and were able to have meaningful discussions about the impact to their home and how to fix these.
• CSE’s retrofit representatives could more easily demonstrate that retrofit starts with basic repairs, before installing expensive sustainability measures like renewables.
• This environment created a space for open and honest conversations, which helped our CSE reps to offer specific and actionable advice.
  

To find out more about the outcomes of this project and other LEAD projects, take a look at South West’s Net Zero Hub’s learning resources toolkit. This has been produced with input from all the projects, sharing their unique methods and learnings.

About the project

This is just one of the innovative projects being delivered across England through the Local Energy Advice Demonstrator programme to explore new approaches to local in-person energy advice. The projects are funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and supported by the Net Zero Hubs – in the West of England, it’s the South West Net Zero Hub.