Lewisham College and Trade Union Studies are working on a joint bid with CDB to fund green skills/awareness courses.
Community Draught Busters
Who we are and what we do
Background
Community Draught Busters (CDB) is a community business based in Brixton, South London. Its roots are in the transition movement and its founders are members of Transition Town Brixton. Our mission is to support homeowners, organisations and businesses in reducing their energy consumption and promoting energy security. We do this by offering draught proofing, insulation and energy advice and training.
The business was started in August 2010, after the completion of the Lambeth Green Doctors programme that was funded by the GLA through the Low Carbon Zone project. Five unemployed individuals were recruited in 2009 under the project to offer energy efficiency advice and to install draught proofing and other energy saving measures. At the end of the programme (2010) all five individuals found permanent employment in areas related to trade skills e.g. building maintenance.
Community Draught Busters through its commercial activities employed two long term unemployed individuals from August 2010 through to August 2011. One individual left and obtained a warehouse job and the other individual has remained with Draught Busters. In the past eight months we have provided part time employment for a further four people.
These jobs have been created without any special funding schemes/grants and have been financed through commercial trading activities. Our intention is to scale up our activities to offer a service that promotes our objective across London.
Objectives
As a community enterprise we are trying to achieve the following objectives, while respecting the environment and providing fair incomes:
1. To reduce energy use in homes and commercial buildings
2. To encourage the employment of local people in green construction and energy reduction
3. Promote strategies to reduce fuel poverty and indebtedness.
4. Encourage the adoption of environmentally efficient practices
Business Model
Our aim is to generate sufficient income through commercial activities to satisfy the objectives above.
We see potential to generate sustainable income through the following streams:
1. Sub-contracted work from large contractors that have been awarded local authority contracts and are interested in sub-contracting work out to smaller businesses
2. Retrofitting (possibly Green Deal financed) of existing homes and commercial properties
3. Training in green construction skills
Business Case
There is extensive redevelopment/construction work taking place in both Southwark and Lambeth over the next five years (1). It is the aim of CDB to encourage local unemployed people to take up
1 London Construction Employment and Skills Mapping Exercise Report, June 2012
apprenticeship opportunities with large contractors involved in local projects. Those trained and not retained by the contractor would be offered an opportunity to take up paid work placements through CDB; assisted to find work with other local SMEs or supported in self employment.
A model of this already exists in the form of the partnership between Birmingham City Council and the contractor Carillion. The partnership enabled the construction of the new Birmingham Library (2). The £188m project in the city's Centenary Square created a blueprint for how to integrate benefits to Birmingham's most hard-hit residents: the homeless, the young and the unemployed. Central to the building of this unique, state-of-the-art library, are on-site apprenticeships, placements and a goal to help 250 local people back to work, create up to 75 on-site apprenticeships and 30 places for the homeless under the Business Action on Homelessness (BAOH) through the Ready for Work programme. The 250 jobs target is set to deliver taxpayers a saving of £6.25m.
We are actively working with Lambeth Council through Section 106 Agreements to facilitate training and work placements for local people. We have entered into a conversation with a large contractor who is involved in construction projects in both Lambeth and Southwark. The focus of the conversation is on how we can work together to provide possible work placements and small subcontracts to the community. Unionlearn, a partner organisation has links with Carillion and also Lendlease, two sizable contractors operating in Southwark and Lambeth.
Retrofitting of existing buildings
It has been claimed that the retrofit market in the UK could be worth £200 billion by 2050, involving the retrofitting of 600,000 homes per year (3). Across the UK, we are achieving one tenth of this target. With suitable investment, a sustainable labour market for low carbon jobs is feasible. The Government’s ‘Green Deal’ could provide a mechanism to finance the retrofit market. Indeed, the NEA report ‘Green Deal and Affordable Warmth Project’ outlines the role Transition Towns can play in ensuring adequate home insulation for hard-to-treat homes and people experiencing fuel poverty, either through the Green Deal or ECO.
We foresee a role for community green deal advisers and community retrofitting programmes – possibly in conjunction with larger contractors. Feedback from several potential green deal providers e.g. Carillion and B&Q have stated that they are willing to work with independent green deal advisers. Carillion have gone further by public stating that all of the green deal installation work will be contracted out to smaller providers. We clearly see that the green deal offers the opportunity to scale up what we already do in the retrofit market.
Training
A number of reports have identified skills shortages as a barrier to a low carbon economy (4). These reports highlight a range of skills required, ranging from ‘light green’ e.g. green marketing skills to more ‘dark green’ skills such as environmental technologies engineers and technicians. CDB sees itself facilitating training in the areas of energy surveys/advice, building insulation and also electrical services. The focus of the training will be to address local skills shortages and to promote the acquisition of recognised qualifications which equip individuals with the prerequisites for sustainable employment. Key to this is apprenticeship training that can address the issue of an aging workforce and skills lost through retirement.
2 http://www.carillionplc.com/our-markets/local-authorities/library -of -birmingham.aspx
3 http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/10m-retrofit-project-london-smes
4 BIS (2011) Skills for a green economy
We expect to finance these training programmes through a combination of grant funding, partnership funding e.g. Job Centre Plus and Skills Funding Agency support through local further education colleges. CDB will provide on-site training for individuals who are job ready and will work with other partners to secure job readiness for those who are unemployed.
Working with those at risk of fuel poverty
Working with those who are fuel poor is one of our central aims. There are a number of ways that we accomplish this:
1. Free or subsidised draught proofing in the home
2. Energy efficiency awareness training
3. Energy monitoring systems and automated digital controls
4. Energy company switching and bulk energy purchasing
CDB is able to provide limited discounted draught proofing from the proceeds of its commercial activities. Energy efficiency training has been financed largely through grant funding. We do not foresee energy efficiency awareness training being an income generating activity in its own right. Smart energy metering and supply is expected to be a growth area over the next five years. Our work in this field is to ensure that the fuel poor have adequate information on these systems to reduce their energy spends. As part of our energy advice sessions we promote the switching of energy tariffs under the appropriate circumstances. Our future plans include facilitating bulk energy purchasing for those on low incomes.
August 2012
