A/ What is driving the Social Housing sector now?
There are numerous changes ahead, including regulatory changes and the ongoing demand for affordable housing, which continues to exceed supply. Addressing socio-economic inequality, securing funding, and ensuring housing stock is well-maintained and up to standard are all crucial goals. Additionally, the focus on energy efficiency and retrofitting to achieve Net Zero ambitions presents challenges. These factors inspire social housing landlords to deliver more homes and enhance existing stock. While social rent increases remain limited, the rise in National Insurance contributions highlights the importance of innovative financial strategies. Moreover, an ageing population puts further pressure on resources.
B/ What role does Social Housing have in achieving the Netzero ambition?
The government has legislated for the UK to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, with intermediary targets of a 68% reduction by 2030 and a 78% reduction by 2035. Approx 21% of carbon emissions in England is produced by using fossil fuels in homes; and social housing contributes 10% of this. Social housing providers and suppliers can contribute to this ambition in many ways. This can be through the sustainable supply of high quality and safe housing stock and materials (improves wellbeing for tenants and owners), energy efficient innovations (retaining heat) and retrofitting (renovating quickly).
In the interior’s surfaces world, a flooring surface with enhanced warmth and comfort and looselay properties can address these areas and contribute to improving energy efficiency within a home with the reduction of heat consumption & loss, whilst also reducing energy usage. The 2025 Future Homes Standard (FHS) for flooring in social housing in the UK sets a U-value of 0.13 W/m²K. The FHS sets a minimum U-value for floors, which measures how well a home's fabric prevents heat from escaping. A lower U-value indicates that a home is better insulated, as it allows less heat to escape.
Building construction products can significantly reduce the impact of damp and mould on housing stock. This is achieved through innovative surface protection for interior finishes and the use of flooring surfaces with textile backings, which create a barrier to prevent moisture and contamination.
C/ How do you help Local Authorities and Housing Associations to achieve their Netzero ambition when it comes to managing their housing stock?
By adopting a consultative and collaborative approach, I thoroughly understand their housing program. I then assist in introducing and specifying a comprehensive range of eco-friendly flooring, wall coverings, and interior finishes. I tailor these solutions to meet their housing stock requirements and demonstrate how each product can significantly reduce carbon emissions.
For example, our products are manufactured using biomass fuel factories, significantly reducing energy consumption during the manufacturing process, driving down the embodied carbon impact or our products. Our Gerflor Fibre Technology (GFT) Housing collection contains less raw materials as it uses 4 recycled plastic bottles in every 1m2 of product, additionally the product can be loose laid without adhesives for areas up to 35 square meters. This not only makes installation fast and easy but means the products can be uplifted, repurposed or recycled at end of their life.
My main goal is to help customers meet their budget constraints while achieving their Net Zero ambitions and ensuring the long-lasting performance of their social housing projects.
Want to know more?
Come meet the Housing team Conrad John and Alex Mason at CIH Southwest to discuss all things ‘Netzero’ .
Click here to find out more about how Gerflor and @Gradus (for a complete interiors package) are helping to shape the future of social housing.
