Overview

Community Led Retrofit in north east Scotland: The North East Scotland Retrofit Hub (NESFIT), in collaboration with local retrofit architects mwclubb, have been engaging with communities across the north east to help householders understand why and how we must future proof our homes and the huge opportunities associated with this.

Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire face a huge challenge in meeting good energy performance targets. More than half the existing housing stock is below EPC ‘C’, which translates to a need to retrofit 110,000 homes in less than 10 years. This necessitates a rate of over 200 homes per week. Concurrently fuel poverty is at 35% in the north east, which the homelessness charity Homeward recognise as a key driver of poverty and deprivation.

Analysis by the Construction Leadership Council, shows that delivering retrofit at scale could generate 4,000 jobs in the area, while also eliminating fuel poverty, reducing emissions, future proof homes, increasing disposable income and crucially improving the health of the public at large.

In our view, a Just Transition for the north east is not about oil workers getting jobs on wind farms, it is about people in deprived neighbourhoods getting jobs alleviating fuel poverty in their own communities.

The NESFIT project has three core objectives, i) to raise public awareness of Whole House Retrofit, ii) to develop a supply chain for retrofit through support and training of local contractors, iii) to work towards a Retrofit Plan for every home so we know what we need to deliver.

The project has engaged with three communities in Daviot, Kemnay and Torry, by providing Retrofit Plans for local homes and community engagement events. NESFIT has also delivered training for local contractors on the key skills and knowledge required to undertake Whole House Retrofit. Alongside this activity, mwclubb has developed Retrofit Plans for 40 community buildings which are ideal seed points for action.

Gap the project addresses

There are several gaps we are filling:

1. The delivery gap between the Home Energy Scotland (HES) service and reliable, trusted delivery of energy efficiency measures. While the HES acts as a key gateway to enabling energy efficiency, householders are unsupported once they leave the service, not knowing who to contract, what to ask for, or how to check the work. Retrofit businesses like NESFIT and mwclubb provide the hand holding service that is needed throughout the process.
2. The supply chain and skills gap – A significant challenge in north east Scotland is the lack of certified trades and contractors for carrying out retrofit works. There is only one certified Greendeal installer in the north east, which means the majority of publicly funded energy efficiency works are carried out by contractors outside the region. An important part of the engagement strategy is helping local trades and contractors understand the knowledge and skills required to undertake retrofit work.
3. The trust gap – addressing the supply chain and skills gap will help provide local contractors for retrofit which helps bring trust to the delivery, but another crucial component is independent Retrofit Designers and Coordinators to design and check the work that is done. Our work has shown that local independent trusted advisors immediately build trust into the process.

Ownership model

NESFIT is a Community Benefit Society, operating under cooperative rules, and a registered charity. Membership is open to anyone.

mwclubb is a limited company which reinvest all its profits into its ethical pricing policy.

Policy mechanisms and funding

The Heat in Buildings Strategy and the Climate Change Act (Scotland) are the guiding pieces of legislation that has driven this action so far.

NESFIT Funding sources:

• Scottish Gas: £5,000 to run Retrofit Fundamentals training courses
• NHS Grampian and Aberdeen City Council: £5000 to fund air quality sensors for our Health Improvement Project, measuring the links between fuel poverty and health in Aberdeen.
• Vattenfall: £5,000 to fund retrofit plans for homes in Daviot
• UKSPF: £5,000 to fund retrofit plans in Torry
• SSEN Transmission Community Fund: £88,000 to fund a Project Coordinator for 2 years.

mwclubb Funding source:

• Rural Community Led Vision Fund: Delivering retrofit plans and designs for 37 Community Buildings across Aberdeenshire.
• Scottish Gas & Scottish Rugby – Club and Community Net Zero Fund, providing Retrofit Plans for every community rugby club in Scotland.
• Independent retrofit project, privately funded by homeowners.

Impact to date

NESFIT: 24 industry professionals have received training. 8 homes have received Retrofit Plans.

Contribution to just transition

The project contributes to all the Just Transition Outcomes:

• Citizens, communities and place: We support local communities by giving them a better understanding of their buildings and a plan for future proofing them. These plans contribute to the Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy and help the community understand the best solutions for powering their buildings in the future, be that heat pumps, heat networks etc.
• Jobs, skills and education: We provide training for construction professionals and education for the public which has already generated jobs in the local region. We hope to provide further support to ensure that contractors can achieve the right accreditations and to look at the materials supply chain encompassing retrofit materials and the circular economy for construction.
• Fair distribution of costs and benefits: We operate an ethical pricing policy to help the least able to pay and eliminating Fuel Poverty is a key objective for NESFIT.
• Business and Economy: We primarily support and promote local businesses which generates community wealth and opportunity. By reducing fuel poverty and energy bills at large, more disposable income is released into the local economy.
• Adaptation and resilience: Engaging communities in retrofit is a direct route to demonstrating how we mitigate carbon emissions from buildings and how we adapt them for the future climate impacts of overheating and flooding risk. Buildings that undergo whole house retrofit are more resilient to power cuts and extreme weather events.
• Environmental protection and restoration: Emissions from Scottish homes account for 19% of national carbon emissions, hence reducing these emissions is key to protecting our environment.

Benefits to the local area and regional heritage

Aberdeen is blessed with some outstanding works of architecture and listed buildings, crafted from the granite quarries of the region. Protecting these buildings and making them fit for the future is key to our resilience against climate change and our cultural heritage.

While Aberdeen prides itself on being the energy capital of Europe, it has in fact had many different industries from textiles, to fishing and oil & gas. While oil & gas has benefitted many in the region, there is also huge inequality which must be addressed by making communities less reliant on energy and with buildings that are comfortable and healthy, free of condensation and mould.

Delivering the retrofit our project aims to deliver, will eliminate fuel poverty, create 4,000 jobs, while generating significant savings to NHS Grampian through the provision of better housing. It will also help to deliver the Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy which councils are trying to deliver.

Lessons learned

Communities have responded very positively to the project so far with NESFIT attracting a growing membership and additional funding. The project has shown that construction professionals are eager to work in this area, as seen through further calls for our training courses and a waiting list for places. Those able-to-pay homeowners who have undertaken retrofit work have been very happy with the results and have hosted visits and case studies with communities to share their experiences.

Challenges

The key challenges are a lack of core revenue funding for starting this project and the lack of funding for the Retrofit Coordinator service, which is not currently covered by Home Energy Scotland loans. This means that Retrofit hubs are reliant on the able-to-pay sector, which is a narrow segment consisting of early adopters at present. We hope that the revised Heat In Buildings Bill will alleviate this and open the doors to further adoption and funding provision for householders.

Replication and scaling

This model originates in Manchester and is also being replicated in Glasgow by Loco Home Retrofit. We have established a network of Retrofit Hub Champions across the country who are trying to develop similar models for their regions. Retrofit hubs face funding challenges due to a lack of core funding from revenue funding streams.

Retrofit hub activities can certainly be scaled up to support government activities. For example, Retrofit Hubs can provide the Retrofit Coordination services required by publicly funded energy efficiency schemes, to provide independent verification of the work. This would give the government greater certainty in the quality of the delivery and enable the hub to expand its own activities.

Working conditions and fair work practices

Featured organisations and initiatives were asked to supply the following information regarding working conditions:

• Alignment with Scottish Government Fair Work First criteria
• If they have gone beyond Fair Work First by incorporating broader values on fair work
• For larger organisations, whether a union recognition agreement is in place.

This did not apply to co-operatives structures and membership-based initiatives, though all projects and initiatives were given room to provide any detail on fair work practices deemed relevant.

The following information was provided:

NESFIT currently employs one member of staff, with funding agreed for another post to commence in September 2025 (in partnership with the Just-Transition-Systems project coordinated by Uni of Aberdeen).

Our employment complies with Fair Work First criteria; the salary is in excess of the living minimum wage and is competitive with equivalent market rates, multiple communication channels are provided with line management actively soliciting and acting on employee feedback and a development plan has been mutually agreed.

We are interested in incorporated broader values and are developing policies and systems that deliver on and exceed the Fair Work First criteria, committing to fair pay, effective worker voice and investment in workforce development, by:

• Embedding inclusive recruitment processes, ensuring a fair and accessible hiring process.
• Not offering contracts on a zero hours basis.
• Guaranteeing flexible working hours whenever possible to enable family friendly working practices.
• Offering salaries that meet or exceed the National Living Wage.
• Developing consultation and communication strategies that engage employees both directly and indirectly.
• Initiating voluntary recognition of a trade union such as UNISON, IWGB, or Community Trade Union. As we only have one employee at the moment, we have not yet engaged with a union, but that will happen in due course.
• Creating a competency framework to aid employee development.
• Developing generic and personalised training plans that support inclusive progression.
• Enabling workplace support programmes such as buddying and mentoring.

Establishing methods of celebrating team and individual value and contribution through both formal and informal means.