Improving energy retrofits for disabled people
By Harriet Sansom
In this guest piece, we’re delighted to introduce an important new report by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) on how to improve home energy retrofits with and for disabled people.
As part of the climate and disability strand of the Bristol Climate & Nature Partnership’s Community Climate Action Project, CSE have done a key piece of research on the needs of disabled people and caregivers in relation to energy advice and home energy efficiency improvement services.
CSE is a national charity based in Bristol that works on the twin challenges of tackling the climate emergency and ending the misery caused by cold homes.
Disabled people and caregivers experience a range of barriers that risk excluding them from the energy transition. They are twice as likely to be in poverty compared to non-disabled people due to experiencing barriers to employment or, for caregivers, having fewer hours in which to earn income.
Many disabled people also have more demands for essential energy use, be it from being at home more or to meet energy-related health needs such as additional heating, running assistive-powered technologies (e.g. an electric wheelchair) or for storing medicine. The combination of low income and high energy cost puts disabled people at high risk of fuel poverty.
Reporting on this research, the Centre for Sustainable Energy has produced a range of key resources, including:
• Energy and Disability report and appendices
• A guide to the stages of home energy retrofit and Easy Read version
• Household and caregivers checklist, BSL version and Easy Read version
• Customer checklist and Easy Read version
These resources were launched at the wonderful Climate and Disability Showcase event in Bristol on 2nd October!
The next step for CSE is to bring together stakeholders from across the retrofit sector to push for action on the research’s recommendations to improve retrofit practice.
This piece is adapted from a piece about the full set of resources launched at the Showcase event, available via the Bristol Climate & Nature Partnership web-pages: https://bristolclimatenature.org/news/creating-a-green-and-accessible-future/