North West based Carbon Co-op wins global climate prize at COP26 climate summit

The Carbon co-op, a not-for-profit co-operative that aims to assist people in finding green solutions to reduce carbon emissions from their homes by helping them retrofit, has won the Ashden Award for Green Skills for their People Powered Retrofit project.

The prize was announced at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, at a ceremony attended by the President of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado.

The award was public recognition for Carbon Co-op’s ground breaking work on domestic energy efficiency and retrofit, rolling out a new end to end service for householders and training over 1,000 people in construction green skills.

They are also part of Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham's Climate change partnership.

The Carbon Co-op say that there is a growing awareness of the need to retrofit and that increased time at home during the pandemic focussed people’s minds on the need to change.

But they say that more funding is needed from government to help people afford it.

Winners receive grants, publicity and support to grow and replicate their innovation.

Around 270,000 homes will need to be upgraded every year just in the North between now and 2035 in order to meet government targets.

So far any attempt to scale-up retrofitting has failed because of a lack of qualified trades people and because of the costs involved.

With more than a million homes in Greater Manchester alone likely to require work, thousands more tradespeople will need to get into the retrofitting game if Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is to reach his target of the region being carbon neutral by 2038.

Greater Manchester outlines climate change plan at 'Green Summit'