Launching the Centre of Excellence

Stonewater and Greenoak launched the Centre of Excellence with an event in Surrey on 29 November 2023.

The event brought together Stonewater partners, contractors, consultants, and senior colleagues from across the housing sector to discuss the net zero challenges and opportunities ahead for the housing sector.

Read more about the day in our press release or watch our videos below. You'll also find the slides from the event to download.

The day opened with a video looking at the challenges currently faced across the sector, including issues with current housing stock, the cost of living crisis and how climate change is bringing increasingly extreme weather. 

Jonathan Layzell, Chief Growth & Development Officer at Stonewater, and Vicki March, Greenoak Housing Association’s Director of Development & Sustainability, officially launched the national centre of excellence, explaining how it will build on the two organisations’ expertise, pioneer exemplar projects, evaluate measured outcomes, and disseminate learning across the sector.

Nicholas Harris, Chief Executive Officer, outlined why it is vital that sustainability sits at the heart of the organisation’s business strategy and how the plan was developed to enable all carbon reduction opportunities to be seized.

We also explored possible decarbonisation solutions for both new and existing homes and looked beyond buildings to wider sustainability issues.

We looked at measures currently in place when building our homes, including changes to design, the introduction of smart technologies and how we're retrofitting our homes. 

Marie Riordan, Director of Development (South & Central), and Adam Masters, Assistant Director Environment and Sustainability at Stonewater discussed retrofit and new build standards and Clare Rainsford, Environmental Sustainability Business Partner at Stonewater, explored how we can build a circular, sustainable housing economy. 

Slides from the day are available below, and a full recording of the day will be available to watch here soon.