Making a case for retrofit

Aligning with existing organisational priorities

Considering your organisation’s values can help to support the case for retrofit. If you can recognise areas where there are motivations, goals, and objectives in common with the benefits of retrofit, decision-makers will be interested.

A starting point may be to review your organisation’s website, its corporate strategy and any other internal or external documents for relevant references of declarations. Doing a keyword search on internal and external platforms may help to find key information for building a business case, for example, searching for:

• “sustainability”
• “net zero”
• “decarbonisation”
• “climate change”
• “fuel poverty”
• “cost of living”
• “damp”
• “mould”
• “healthy homes”

Baselining 

Being able to present relevant ‘baseline’ data and information on the energy efficiency of your housing stock is a key pillar of your business case; after all, if you don’t know where you are currently, how can you argue that retrofit should be a priority for the organisation? Knowledge of the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of your housing stock is a basic but easily communicated example of the type of data required for building a successful business case. This includes understanding metrics such as what the average EPC rating of your housing stock currently is, what percentage is under EPC C, and how this compares to the sector average? Importantly, what does the intelligence from this data mean for any existing or proposed targets e.g. the number of homes you’ll need to upgrade to EPC C by a certain date?

Gathering baseline data will help you recognise areas for improvement that can be measured easily by your organisation, inform potential targets and key performance indicators, and provide a starting point to your business case.

Problem solving & offering retrofit as a solution

Identifying a problem and pitching retrofit as a solution will help support your business case. For example, consider if your organisation holds data on the number of enquiries, complaints and repair callouts related to cold homes, unaffordability of energy bills, damp & mould issues.

These issues can be seen as supporting drivers for retrofit, as they should all be addressed through installing measures that make homes warmer and energy efficient. In turn, this should reduce the number of enquiries, complaints and repairs callouts from residents, which could offer the organisations efficiency savings and an improved reputation.

Getting this data can be difficult, so consider speaking to relevant colleagues to build up a picture of the baseline. Customer services, maintenance teams and customer-facing colleagues, such as Resident Liaison Officers, could all be helpful.

Aligning with existing projects and programmes

Bolster your business case by investigating whether there are existing planned investment or asset management works which might complement your retrofit goals, reduce costs, and minimise disruption to residents. Your planned investment team will likely have a multi-year component replacement cycle, with budget already assigned; could this align with a wider retrofit project including heating system replacements or fabric insulation measures? For example, a window replacement programme could be the perfect time to consider retrofitting solid wall properties with external wall insulation, since scaffold would already be in place, and the measures could be installed in proper alignment. For those working in mixed tenure areas, could works to owner-occupied or mixed tenure housing be planned to coincide with work to social housing stock? Area-based approaches are of interest to policy makers and can lead to lots of benefits, such as inclusive resident engagement, efficiency savings, and an uplift in the whole area.

Demonstrating that you’ve thought about synergies with known challenges and existing planned works can really make a difference!

Getting it on the radar

Engaging with the right people within your organisation while drafting your business case for retrofit is crucial. Different departments may hold knowledge, expertise and information that can strengthen your case for retrofit. Showing that you’ve engaged key individuals and teams not only helps to inform the business case itself, but also demonstrates that you’ve already socialised the identified benefits, organisational drivers and need for the retrofit before it is shared with decision-makers.

Consider how different members of your organisation might relate to a retrofit proposal. Sharing examples and case studies from previous retrofit projects, or success stories from similar organisations, can help them to realise the benefits more obviously and visualise it for your own housing stock.

The RISE website also has a range of useful content that you can consider sharing as you put retrofit on the organisational radar, including links to events, webinars and case studies that will support your organisation’s understanding of retrofit.

Considering your audience

Your business case needs to consider the high influence and high interest stakeholders. This includes internal and external to your organisation. There are varying levels of stakeholder influence that you will need to consider and how this will impact the content of your business case. Structuring your business case content with this in mind will contribute to the success of your business case.

Resource requirements

Delivering a retrofit project alone would be difficult, so you will need to draw on different teams. This means defining the resource and capabilities you require from the beginning, to help your organisation understand the level of input needed to deliver the project successfully. You might want to include the following resources:

• Senior colleagues to champion and be accountable for the project
• Project and programme management colleagues to help deliver the project
• Housing colleagues, including some with resident liaison expertise
• Quality data to provide an accurate depiction of the housing stock and its current condition
• Technical colleagues with certain qualifications needed to deliver different elements of the project. PAS 2035 sets out the qualifications required for someone to fulfil key project roles and should be a consideration
• A capable supply chain for providing goods and services as necessary
• Procurement colleagues
• External funding opportunities
• Internal match funding
• Finance colleagues to ensure project income and expenditure is forecast realistically and
• Governance colleagues to ensure the current internal permissions are sought

Defining your ask

The table below could act as a template to construct your business case with. It poses critical questions and suggests the key information that colleagues may want to know. Using these template, you can assess the coverage of your business case to ensure that you are putting the best case forward for your retrofit project.

Useful resources:
RISE Business Case Toolkit - https://riseretrofit.org.uk/resources/toolkits/business-case-toolkit