THE GREEN DOCTOR

Salix Homes has joined forces with the Green Doctor service to help our residents stay warm, stay well and save money on household bills.

All Salix Homes tenants can request a free home visit from a Green Doctor, who are trained energy efficiency experts, or we can refer our tenants directly.

The Green Doctors offer free, impartial advice to help you take control of your bills, save energy where possible in the home, and access other services and initiatives available.

They can provide different kinds of support, whether it’s advice on paying off debt with energy or water companies, identifying energy efficiency improvements in the home or spotting other concerns for a referral to other services.

Some of the reasons people contact the Green Doctors are:

  • Struggling to pay energy bills
  • Finding it hard to manage fuel debt
  • Worrying about keeping warm or choosing between eating and heating
  • Respiratory problems such as asthma or a persistent cough

Here are just a few of the free services you can get when you sign up for a Green Doctor consultation:

  • Fixing causes of heat loss in your home
  • Useful tips for saving energy and water whilst ensuring your home stays safe and comfortable
  • Installing small energy and water efficiency measures, such as draft excluders
  • Help with accessing other support, such as emergency heating, government subsidies or grants, and advice on energy or water debt

Our Green Doctors can support you with speaking to your energy providers to check that they have your up-to-date contact details.

Contact Salix Homes on enquiries@salixhomes.co.uk or call 0800 218 2000 to request your referral to the Green Doctor service.

David Malsom, sustainability manager

ACHIEVING CARBON NEUTRALITY AT SALIX HOMES

David Malsom is our sustainability manager, who is tasked with supporting Salix Homes to cut our carbon footprint and oversee our journey to Net Zero. We sat down with David to find out what this means…

What is Net Zero?

A target of completely negating the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity, to be achieved by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The UK Government has set a target for the UK to be Net Zero by 2050.

So what about carbon neutral?

Similar to Net Zero, but carbon neutral only refers to offsetting carbon dioxide rather than all the greenhouse gases, which also include methane and nitrous oxide.

In Greater Manchester, there is a target to become carbon neutral by 2038.

What does this mean for Salix Homes

In line with the Greater Manchester target, we have committed to becoming a carbon neutral organisation by 2038.

This means we need to emit virtually no carbon in our homes, our office buildings and within our supply chain.

What’s a carbon footprint?

A carbon footprint is the amount of carbon that we generate.

As a business, our carbon footprint is around 7,000 tonnes per year. But we have over 8,000 homes in Salford, and collectively they generate around 21,000 tonnes of carbon every year, which we will have to reduce to virtually zero.

Can Salix Homes achieve the targets?

The most challenging aspect will be achieving carbon neutrality in all our homes, many of which are older properties, and will require ‘green’ home upgrades and improvement work, such as insulation. The electricity used to power our homes is only as clean as the energy which generates it, so until the electricity providers switch to greener alternatives, which is expected in the mid to late 2030s, then our homes will not be carbon neutral, and we have no control over this.

What we can do is ensure our homes are as energy efficient as possible and are ready for the transition to a cleaner energy source when the time comes.

What is Salix Homes doing?

It’s a big challenge and won’t be achieved overnight. As an organisation we will need to fundamentally change the way we operate.

With our homes, the first step is to bring all our properties up to EPC ‘C’ by 2030. Then we will be investigating how alternative heating systems and sources of renewable energy could be used in our future home improvement programmes.

We are already using ground source heat pumps at some of our tower blocks and our new Greenhaus development will create highly energy efficient and sustainable homes.

Looking to our business operations, we’ll be looking at various measures like using renewable energy sources for our offices, adopting alternative ways to travel, improving our waste management and recycling, and ensuring that we work with contractors who also have good carbon credentials.

Watch our video to hear more from sustainability manager David Malsom.

Performing Well

95.5%

of customers are satisfied with the environmental services we provide