Foreword

Training update

stuart Fairlie Managing Director Elmhurst Energy

Since the turn of the year, I have been out and about meeting customers, attending exhibitions and talking at many conferences. The resounding message that I am hearing is that more businesses and people want to understand how to achieve better energy efficiency for their homes and buildings. The message we continue to push is that Elmhurst Members are the first point of contact - to help them understand the energy efficiency of their building and to advise on what steps to take next. The key as always is that every building is different, and occupiers use these buildings differently too.

Whether people need energy assessments, retroﬁt, air testing, and more, we can connect the clients to Elmhurst Members. Energy Eﬃciency is not just a tick box, but rather a combination of products and services. This means that as an industry, collaborative working needs to be embraced. The whole building approach is a mantra that keeps coming up and is always going to be the right approach.

Energy Performance Certiﬁcates (EPCs) have recently been front and centre of the news. And, although most articles are supportive, others seem to want to discredit EPCs. Rest assured that Elmhurst always responds to journalists and authors to discuss and counter what is nearly always just a misunderstanding. We will always stand up for good independent information and drive the positives of our sector, but we accept that improvement and innovation are paramount.

I was delighted to attend our National Conference in January. It was our biggest and best event ever, with record attendance and a fantastic lineup of industry experts and government representatives. We will also be rolling out regional conferences in Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, with our next taking place on 6th June in Edinburgh. As always it will be great to hear from an excellent array of speakers and catch up with as many of you as possible.

I am also pleased to see that the coming together of Stroma and Elmhurst is taking place across different strands. The teams here are working extremely hard to ensure business continuity and smooth transitions, but as we do it, we add more and more value to each strand. The support teams will be larger and more resilient, and we are taking the best of both worlds to ensure that members end up with better service and products. Please keep an eye out for any communications that affect you. In terms of consultations, we continue to reply to all those that affect all our members, with amendments to PAS 2035 as a recent example. We are also aware that the government is close to issuing the consultation on the EPC Action Plan, with its aim to build upon and improve all aspects of EPCs. The Energy Bill is also progressing, which will ensure that the law, which was previously in line with EU law, is reset to UK legislation. Keep an eye out for a consultation on SAP 11, which is expected in ‘Spring’ and will indicate the next step on the transition to the Future Homes Standard in 2025. Disappointingly we still have no clear plan for the introduction of RdSAP 10 to upgrade this to the latest SAP 10 methodology; we continue to ask and push for this change, as we know it is urgently required.

I am also increasingly aware that banks and lenders are becoming more involved in the domestic sector with regard to EPCs in their lending books and with green financing, including loans and mortgages linked to energy efficiency. This was something Elmhurst members were doing in the mid-90s before EPCs became regulated, so the good news is that we all know how to help consumers understand their homes or buildings. The financial markets recognise that they need to operate more in this space; and with this comes the opportunity for quality and competent people. This is why we continue to push our ‘Find an Assessor’ tool on our website to easily connect consumers to Elmhurst members.

I hope that 2023 continues to be a very buoyant year for you all and that together we can keep pushing for quality and competence, to help deliver the more energy eﬃcient future that we all know is required. us on

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