Vaughan Gething MS Welcomes Plans to Reduce Wales’ Carbon Footprint

Vaughan Gething MS has welcomed a new programme announced by the Welsh Government to reduce the carbon footprint of existing social housing in Wales, make energy bills more manageable for residents and provide new job and training opportunities.

The £9.5million programme will fund the fitting of energy efficiency measures in up to 1000 existing homes owned by registered social landlords and councils. The programme will lead to better homes, help tackle fuel poverty and contribute to decarbonisation.

The retrofit programme will support the sector to test different approaches to reach the goal of carbon neutrality. It will include an innovation competition – opening next month – to support the piloting of innovative new solutions for retrofitting our housing stock.

Announcing the programme, Minister for Housing Julie James MS said:

” Housing is responsible for 27% of all energy consumed in Wales and 15% of all demand side greenhouse gas emissions. While we have plans in place to ensure new homes are heated and powered only from clean energy sources, ensuring our existing housing stock is as energy efficient as possible is vital to if we are to meet our ambitious target of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 95% by 2050″.

Welcoming the announcement Vaughan Gething MS said:

” Making our homes more energy efficient is a essential to tackling climate change. This programme will help to reduce energy bills, improve people’s health and wellbeing and create training and jobs opportunity in construction and manufacturing”.