Embedded Files
Believe, a social housing association, needed a strategic approach for engaging residents in decarbonization. My team co-developed a set of “Radical Care” operating principles to ground their efforts.
The Problem
The UK government passed a law requiring the housing sector to be carbon neutral by 2050.
Believe, a social housing association, would need to retrofit the majority of their existing properties to meet this goal. What would that mean for their residents, many of whom were struggling to meet basic needs today?
Discovery
We interviewed staff and residents to better understand their lives, their experiences with Believe, and how a retrofit might fit into the mix.
We quickly noticed that Believe staff genuinely cared about their residents. This led us to ask how residents experienced Believe’s care. For residents, we learned, home repairs were a defining care experience.
We began to look at retrofits as “radical repairs” - an engagement in which Believe’s signature care could be delivered (or not) just as in a repair, but felt (or not felt) to a far greater degree.
Retrofits could be an opportunity to deliver Radical Care to residents.
Designing for Radical Care
We felt strongly that the staff who would be responsible for delivering Radical Care and the residents who would be receiving it should own its definition. We started with a set of operating principles that would ground any retrofit (or other decarbonization) services.
We agreed on five operating principles and defined what each one would look like in action.
Results
The Radical Care principles were endorsed by Believe’s executive team, and a new staff position was created to ensure their implementation in practice. They grounded the design and piloting of Believe’s new retrofit service.
Believe also made a point of incorporating resident feedback into the service design and adopted a human-centered approach to other strategic initiatives.
"This challenged us to think differently, rather than taking the same old approach. We want to put our residents at the center of our work. Now we’ll do that not just in what we deliver, but how we deliver it."
- Believe Environmental Director
Following this project, I worked with Believe and other social housing associations to set a broader vision for putting residents at the center of decarbonization. It was... fun! Check it out here.
Google Sites
Report abuse