In a bid to meet its net-zero target by 2030, Cambridge City Council has today (Tuesday 29 July) published a report by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership which sets out recommendations for how to scale up urgent work to retrofit homes to make them efficient to run, more comfortable to live in and reduce carbon emissions.

The report, Delivering Retrofit at Scale Together: Better homes for healthier, resilient and stronger communities, identifies key challenges and opportunities in improving ageing housing stock in Cambridge and the wider region to meet the council’s net-zero target and enhance residents’ wellbeing; and sets out six recommendations to overcome these challenges.

In Cambridge, homes account for 27% of the city’s emissions. Many of the homes are poorly insulated and reliant on fossil fuels such as gas and oil for heating. Improvements to homes - including insulation, solar panels, and electric heating - will be essential for achieving net zero targets, while also delivering a range of other benefits.

In addition to reducing emissions, improved energy efficiency makes homes more comfortable to live in and potentially cheaper to run, addressing health inequality and fuel poverty – challenges that are especially acute in Cambridge. Moreover, accelerating retrofit activity could bring significant economic benefits, including job creation and local skills development. Cambridge has a higher percentage of rental properties than the rest of the UK, which offers an opportunity to tackle this challenge at scale.

However, several barriers persist, including high upfront costs, a lack of skilled retrofit professionals, and inadequate national funding structures which are complex and difficult to access, all compounded by a lack of consistent national policy.

The six targeted recommendations to scale retrofit for more homes in the area are to:

1. Develop a data-driven retrofit strategy through a comprehensive housing stock and public attitudes survey.
2. Collaborate on national policy advocacy to influence consistent, long-term support for retrofitting.
3. Expand the Action on Energy programme by investing in staffing and digital infrastructure.
4. Explore innovative financing models, including council-backed loan schemes and partnerships with academics and industry.
5. Strengthen local engagement and skills development by working with colleges, contractors, and community groups.
6. Centralise retrofit data and track progress through a robust project management system and public portal.

Cllr Rosy Moore, Cambridge City Council’s Cabinet Member for Climate Action and Environment, said: “Cambridge City Council was among the first councils in the UK to declare climate and biodiversity emergencies in 2019, and has committed to getting its own operations to net zero by 2030. Since then, Cambridge was named an ‘A’ list city in 2023 and 2024 in the Carbon Disclosure Project’s global rankings, while also being recognised as a top performing council in Climate Emergency UK’s Council Climate Action scorecards – both of which acknowledge the council’s ongoing work to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

“We’ve already completed work on 225 council home retrofits – providing external wall insulation, improved ventilation in wet rooms, door undercuts and when required, replacement windows, rear doors and top-up loft insulation – and we recently announced plans to complete 570 more by 2028. But this work is so important; in making people’s homes warmer in winter, cooler in summer, with better air quality, and cheaper to run, but also to reduce harmful emissions that are contributing to climate change.

“With great thanks to CISL for producing this report for us, we now have a set of really clear recommendations as to how we can scale up work to improve people’s homes. With our business, voluntary sector and local government partners, we now need to consider how we can take these recommendations forward, as we develop our new Climate Change Strategy to deliver the change that we all need to see.”

James Cole, Chief Innovation Officer, CISL: “We know we already have a lot of the technology needed to make our homes better – both for the people who live in them, and for the planet and overall resilience of society. What we need is consistent national level policy which focuses not only on developing new homes but also improving our existing stock and a national direction of travel set over a longer period will give confidence to markets to step up and make this happen.”