Next week, Tuesday 19th January, the online retrofit conference Low Carbon Homes Liverpool, supported by MCS, goes live for three days of knowledge-sharing to consider how Liverpool can rapidly scale up the retrofitting of housing across the city to meet its net-zero target. 

Liverpool City Council plans to make the city carbon neutral by 2030, creating more energy-efficient housing stock, increasing the amount of green space in the city area, and improving air quality. The Council’s vision includes: incentives for the private sector to build more energy-efficient housing; retrofitting 6,000 homes with energy-saving features such as triple glazing, heat pumps and solar panels; and financial incentives for homeowners, including discounted green mortgages.

The Faculty of Engineering and Technology at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), host partner of the event, plays a unique role in fusing industry and academia together. It leads and delivers a range of business innovation programmes, including the Low Carbon Eco-Innovatory.  

Three mornings of presentations and debate have been specifically curated with the assistance of LJMU, Liverpool City Council and an Advisory Board of local stakeholders:

Day 1 (Tuesday 19th January) – What have we got to do and how are we doing?
Prof. Mike Riley, Pro-vice Chancellor, LJMU
Cllr. Barry Kushner, Cabinet Member, Housing & Regeneration (opening the event)
Ian Rippin – CEO & Alex Hughes – Operations Analyst, MCS
Richard Partington, MD, AceOn
James Hill, Property Strategy Director, Onward Housing

Day 2 (Wednesday  20th January) – What else could we be doing?
Charlie Baker, Director, Red Coop
David Lewis, MD, ista
Marianne Heaslip, Associate, Urbed

Day 3 (Thursday 21st January) – What’s holding us back?
Dave Woods, Director of Operations, Cobalt Housing
Dr Lisa Newson, Programme Leader MSc Health Psychology, LJMU 
Prof. Andy Ross, Professor of Construction Economics & Management, LMJU
Louise Davies, Head of Housing Delivery, Liverpool City Council
Lucy Pedler, Director, Futureproof
Wendy Osborn, Partnerships Manager, CITB

Low Carbon Homes Founder, Graham Lock comments:
“We’ve been working with LJMU for over a year now to deliver this event. Originally planned to be a conventional in-person conference, we’ve now successfully transitioned to online, making the event freely accessible to all those concerned with the challenge of scaling up retrofit in Liverpool and the city region.

The role of the Advisory Group has been vital in developing a programme that truly reflects the challenges facing Liverpool.  We’re taking a close look at the viability of retrofit in an area of the UK with relatively low property values and high levels of poverty and look forward to achieving positive outcomes that will enable the city to take bigger steps towards their bold net-zero vision.”

Low Carbon Homes on 19-21 January, hosted by Liverpool John Moores University, is a free-to-attend online event bringing professionals from inter-related sectors together to collaborate and consider the scale of the challenge, the solutions available and the barriers to overcome.

After Liverpool, Low Carbon Homes will be staging further events across the UK.  Next is Kent (26-28 January), followed by Oxfordshire, Manchester and Portsmouth.