Coastline Housing has been short listed for a prestigious Housing Corporation Gold Award for the work it has been doing to help the environment.
Coastline is a local housing association which has around 3,500 properties in the Kerrier district, meaning that many people rely on it for one of the most important things in life - a warm and safe home.
The Company has been short listed for a national Gold Award in the 'environmental sustainability' category for some innovative work it has been doing to help tackle climate change.
Thanks to a £500,000 grant from Powergen, the Company has been carrying out a programme of insulation works across its properties throughout the district to ensure that all homes are brought up to a high standard of energy efficiency.
Insulation is one of the most effective ways to reduce home heating bills, meaning that customers will be saving money as well as staying warmer during the colder months.
Not only does it make people's homes warm and comfortable, but it also helps tackle climate change by lowering energy used for heating and therefore reducing carbon emissions.
Graham May, Building Surveyor at Coastline, said: "Sustainability is becoming a more and more crucial issue. Global warming is one of the biggest challenges that our planet faces and it will affect the most vulnerable people first. Global warming is happening right now and people can't say 'it won't affect' me - the reality is it will affect everyone."
Coastline is also about to embark on a programme to install ground source heat pumps to a number of homes, making use of a renewable, non polluting and cheaper energy source to further save its customers money.
The Company is also beginning to install wind turbines to a sample of customer homes for monitoring and evaluation prior to potentially rolling these out to its own offices.
Graham explains: "With the affects of the insulation programme already providing tangible results we are expanding our environmental action programme covering linked issues which include: transport, environmental health, recycling and waste management, water use and biodiversity - all with a combined environmental and customer focus.
"The main benefit from our environmental work so far has been obtaining a full understanding of our business' environmental impacts and the production of a clear strategy to reduce our carbon footprint. From this, we have been able to identify the challenges facing ourselves and our customers and the resources we need to deal with them in terms of money, information and people.
"Our customers are receiving more comfortable and cost effective housing, spending considerably less on fuel bills, are better informed about our environmental objectives and hopefully placing a greater value on us as a landlord.
"We are delighted to have been short listed for this national award in recognition of all our environmental work. The environment is something we're really passionate about and we'll continue to work to find new ways to do our bit to help tackle climate change."
Coastline was also recently short listed for a Cornwall Sustainability Award for the work it has been doing to help tackle climate change locally.
