Retrofit Scotland Launched at The Lighthouse

Retrofit Scotland was launched on Monday at an exciting event which discussed the challenges and opportunities presented by retrofitting our current building stock to help achieve Scotland’s carbon emissions reduction targets. The event, which was held at the Lighthouse in Glasgow, was attended by over 100 delegates and included presentations by members of the 2020 Built Environment Subgroup, as well as Angus MacLeod Housing Sustainability for the Scottish Government.

Retrofit Scotland is a collaboration of organisations including BRE Scotland, Edinburgh Napier University, Architecture and Design Scotland, and Historic Scotland which has emerged from the 2020 Built Environment Subgroup to provide information on refurbishment projects, best practice, modelling and assessment tools, and finance mechanisms. Retrofit Scotland’s members are actively involved in the research and implementation of retrofit projects throughout Scotland and are committed to the successful development of Scotland’s National Retrofit Programme.

The event not only discussed the well documented challenges of retrofitting in Scotland, but emphasised the opportunities and some success stories to date. The key theme of the event was around the importance of collaboration and promoting learning, which Retrofit Scotland aims to deliver. Wendy Pringle-Macintyre, of SSE, illustrated this by explaining that the Maryhill district heating scheme project wouldn’t have gone ahead without several companies involvement and extensive collaboration.

John Sheridan, Co Chair of the Built Environment Group commented :

“In planning this event we were always very keen to try to make available to the widest audience possible the knowledge and information which already exists in Scotland around this whole topic of retrofit.

“The very positive reaction from delegates has reaffirmed our intention that Retrofit Scotland creates not just another “Library in the Cloud” but provides real day to day examples of what we can do in the built environment in order to contribute to CO₂ reductions, energy efficiency and Climate Change.”

Please look out for the Retrofit Scotland website going live later this month.