Improving the Use of Energy in Buildings

Working in partnership is one of NEF's core values in our approach to tackling climate change. The challenge of climate change means changing all aspects of the way we live our lives at home and at work. That means no one organisation, or indeed one approach will provide "the" solution.

At NEF we reflect this by working in partnership wherever we can.

Our Partners in the UK include:

• Carbon Trust
• Community Energy Practitioners Forum
• Finance South East
• National Energy Services
• Sustainable Energy Academy
• The Ground Source Heat Pump Association
• United Sustainable Energy Agency

A few examples below may help to illustrate the range of partnerships we have already formed and hopefully inspire you to get in contact with NEF to propose new ways of working together. We define successful partnerships as those which deliver real savings in energy now and in the future, and those that complement the independent activity of all partners in countering climate change.

Internationally we work with partners across the EU and occasionally further afield, in countries such as Vietnam or Canada. We are actively engaged in EU programmes such as Intelligent Energy Europe and are always looking for partners in high quality proposals. We also work in support of international standards at the EN or ISO level, bringing our practical experience to bear in creating workable solutions for more sustainable energy systems.

Carbon Trust
We work in partnership with the Carbon Trust in managing the delivery of the Carbon Trust Standard. We strongly support the Carbon Trust's aim of "helping business and the public sector cut carbon emissions, and supporting the development of low carbon technologies". This meant that when the Carbon Trust were considering in 2004 to start up a new accreditation scheme, we worked with them to migrate the existing Energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme to become a Carbon Trust owned service that has become the nucleus of the Carbon Trust Standard, providing a single national recognition scheme for those organisations that have delivered real savings in carbon dioxide emissions over a sustained period.
Link to:
www.carbontruststandard.com

Community Energy Practitioners' Forum
The Community Energy Practitioners’ Forum is a new initiative which brings together some of the leading charities empowering and supporting action by communities on sustainable energy across the UK. CEPF was set up to provide a coordinated and coherent voice and pool of expertise for effective community energy action. It aims to counter potential confusion between the many third sector organisations operating in the area. It is designed to provide a means of bringing together a greater scale of know-how, creativity and support for communities striving to put in place large energy and carbon reduction projects.
Together, the CEPF brings unparalleled expertise.  Its members have already worked in partnership with many other organisations and communities and they are all active in delivering information, advice and support to communities, enabling them to take charge of their own action plans to combat climate change.  All members of CEPF have charitable or not-for profit constitutions and have staff who specifically work in delivery of community energy action through direct and sustained contact with communities
Link to:
www.cepf.org.uk

Finance South East
Finance South East "FSE" is a not-for-profit entity and an FSA-authorised Fund Management group which administers institutional & angel equity, mezzanine loan and bespoke commercialisation support schemes. FSE specialises in developing and operating creative fund structures, and is uniquely positioned to help growth businesses achieve their potential through direct investment, together with a range of professional support and advice.
Link to: Finance South East

National Energy Services
National Energy Services (NES) is the UK's home for independent energy assessors, home inspectors, surveyors and low carbon professionals. It is one of the largest providers of Energy Performance Certificates in both the existing and on-construction sectors and operates an accreditation scheme for Domestic and Commercial Energy Assessors. NES's strengths include industry leading software, developed over more than 20 years, and high quality training courses. NES was the trading subsidiary of the Foundation from 1994 until 2011 and remains headquartered in the National Energy Centre.
Link to:
www.nesltd.co.uk

Sustainable Energy Academy
The National Energy Foundation and The Sustainable Energy Academy agreed to work together in a formal partnership from November 2007, with each charity nominating a number of members to the other's Board of Trustees. Over 6 million older homes in the UK have unnecessarily high fuel bills for their occupants and unacceptably high emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas contributing to climate change. The SuperHomes campaign has developed a network of demonstration homes, mainly in urban areas where most properties lack cavity walls. It shows that existing houses can be transformed to save 60% or more energy than a typical home of the same age and built form. Householders are holding energy Open Days when visitors can learn and be inspired to carry out similar eco-renovations. We plan to provide one to two examples of low energy refurbishment in each local authority area. We see this as the start of a partnership that will lead to the two charities working closely on a number of future projects designed to combat climate change through improving energy standards in UK homes.