Radian Wins Gold At World’s Leading Clean Energy Award
We have been made the overall UK Gold Award winner at the 11th annual Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, the world's leading green energy awards. The Award recognises our achievement in retrofitting hard-to-treat homes to save energy and the building of new homes to high environmental standards.
Judges were impressed with our top-to-toe retrofits to older homes and high-grade eco builds, which exceed the current minimum standards for energy efficiency. Residents are benefiting from lower fuel bills since having their homes retrofitted with energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, resulting in up to 88 per cent reductions in CO2 emissions.
Other key activity that relates to this prestigious win includes a programme of dissemination of positive practice, which culminated in our Retrofit Conference in May. The hugely successful conference at Winchester Guildhall was attended by 309 delegates from the UK and Europe and headlined by Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
The Secretary of State declared, "Radian has a very good reputation in leading the way with a lot of good, new ideas."
Lindsay Todd, Chief Executive, and Sustainability Manager, Paul Ciniglio, were invited to meet Prince Charles at Clarence House yesterday to discuss our work in sustainability and retrofit. His Royal Highness was particularly impressed by the fact that we allow residents to choose whether they wantedtheir homes retrofitted, or regenerated into new build eco homes.
The Award was handed over from Grand Designs presenter, Kevin McCloud. We will invest the prize money in developing our role as leaders in a low-carbon economy and, expanding and disseminating our research and experience in implementing carbon efficiency measures in new and existing housing stock to benefit a greater number of residents.
In a joint statement, the judges of the Ashden Awards, a showcase of practical solutions to combat climate change, rewarding outstanding and innovative low-carbon schemes in the UK and developing countries, said: ""Radian has been selected as this year's Ashden Gold Award winner for its commitment to providing sustainable housing for tenants. The housing association demonstrates the potential for up to 90 per cent CO
Working with partners, Radian is piloting the use of innovative technologies and works hard to share its expertise with others. All new build housing association homes are legally required to meet Code Level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, but significantly, a large number of Radian's go beyond this, and meet Levels 4 - 6.
Paul Ciniglio, Sustainability and Innovation Manager at Radian, said: "I am delighted that we have been recognised with this prestigious award. It is an occasion that takes us to the pinnacle of our work on sustainable energy. I am especially looking forward to working with the experts in the Ashden Awards team to move forward and share our work delivering exemplar retrofits and building new ultra low-carbon homes. The benefits of this work to our residents are significant and the challenge for us now is to help more households."
Mrs Hill, a Radian resident living in a retrofitted home said: “Our monthly fuel bills have come down from £125 a month to £75 a month, and we got a £250 rebate last month too! I used to have to pull a jumper on before I got out of bed, but now the house keeps the heat in really well.”
To view a short documentary telling the story of the retrofit of an entire street in Petersfield, please go to:http://radian.co.uk/201106082604/retrofit-south-east-video.html
