Join the Sustainable Households sub-group

Update on Sustainable Households

Date: 22nd November 2017

Group Aims: To seek ways in which UK households can become more sustainable and to offer them implementable solutions.

Progress: We surveyed RSA Sustainability Network members in March 2017 around the seven themes of Energy, Water, Waste, Transport, Health, Habitats and Community. Results showed that 98% of UK households surveyed felt they can live more sustainably and that their biggest concerns are wasting energy, excessive use of water, food waste, and the challenges of recycling different materials. Read findings

In early July we then ran an ideas workshop on the theme of energy efficiency and asked participants to respond to the question: “How can we radically improve residential renewable use?” The top three ideas participants developed in the course of the workshop were:

Community power using roof spaces to generate solar energy
Matching renewable generation with renewable use to obtain a more competitive price rather than just selling the energy back to the grid and
Bitcoin for renewables - where there is a peer-peer sales platform for energy service providers and individual households can purchase energy seamlessly from different providers by comparing prices

Since the workshop the group has been focusing on how we might support community energy schemes around the country. We intend to tap into other community groups such as Community Energy London to prepare guidance on delivering community solar schemes, and we will share this information through our Sustainable Households website.

In addition, we would like to create individual working groups with different leads to run a number of sustainability initiatives in parallel through 2018 to allow for the biggest impact possible. We will focus on solutions to reduce waste in the areas of energy use, water use and food consumption, and also on encouraging the necessary behavioural changes required to achieve this.

We have received expressions of interest from other Fellows wanting to join our group and will invite them to attend our next meeting in January 2018.