GBRC

Start is an initiative inspired by HRH The Prince of Wales which aims to reach out to as many people as possible with the message that sustainability is something that everyone can be part of and - like every great journey - can 'start' with a single step.

As we said before, there is more to sustainability than just energy. In this blog, Nicola Round, WWF's Forests Campaign manager, explains the link between our local authorities and rainforests.

If refurbishing a home wasn't complicated enough, we now have to choose our materials with greater care and attention. You could see this as a limitation, but for me it’s an opportunity to create a style that embodies the philosophies of sustainability.
  Luckily, there are ever more interesting materials to choose from as I found out when designing the Eco home exhibition at the Geffrye Museum in East London. It struck me that when designing eco homes there are masculine and feminine sides to consider.

The “masculine” focuses on the technical aspects involved in making it more efficient and practical things like new boilers, water efficient toilets and A-rated appliances.
By contrast there is a “feminine” element involved in creating a beautiful and nurturing home. Think fabrics, furniture and dressings.

I remember when generating electricity from the sun seemed closer to science fiction fantasy than a realistic and practical means of micro-energy generation. That was up until yesterday; when I became another homeowner in the UK with the capacity to generate green electricity from an otherwise very ordinary rooftop. 

It's taken some time to realise that I don't like to make things easy for myself - but I do like to make things right. A year ago we moved into a detached 1960s four-bedroom house in Brighton. Hardly the designer home one might expect for a man, who enthuses about good sustainable design on TV, but it took a year and a half to find this ugly house on a nice street and I really believe this 1960s-style house offers us a golden eco-friendly opportunity.
On the plus side it's something of a Tardis. Small on the outside but roomy inside, its large windows make it lovely and light, and it has a generous plot size in a great central Brighton location.

On the downside, it's both characterless and woefully energy inefficient; lacking in roof, wall and floor insulation, and filled with outdated wasteful boilers, appliances, taps and toilets.
But it could very easily become the house of the future: efficient to run and low in CO2 emissions, but also nurturing, and personal – a good home to live in and a great place to bring up my children.

Earlier this month temperatures in Doncaster reached 17 degrees. Normally, I wouldn’t give that a second thought, except we are now in November and the weather folk on TV are calling it ‘unusually high’.

Now, I’m no expert on the science of climate change, so I’m not even going to attempt to make a link between these ‘unusually high’ temperatures and global warming. But, the very reaction of those charged with dispensing our daily weather bulletins does make you think.

The old phrase timing is everything couldn’t have rung more true for us at Keepmoat a couple of weeks ago.

For the past two years, we have been quietly getting on with developing our eco-refurbishment product. Working with our partners to test new sustainable methods while trusting old ones, has, we believe, helped us to pioneer what will become an industry growth area in the next couple of years.