A Community Housing Association’s Strategy for the Benchmarking, Reduction and Sequestration of Carbon Towards a Resilient and Globally Responsible Wales (UK)

This paper explores how Cynon Taf Housing Association (CTHA hereafter)—a community-based social housing developer and landlord in Wales (UK)—has sought to respond to the challenges of climate change. In Wales, of the 1.4 million existing dwellings, circa 226,000 are owned and managed by 55 organizations such as CTHA. Housing in Wales is responsible for an estimated 21% of the UK’s carbon emissions, and with ambitious carbon reduction targets set by the Welsh Government to achieve 47% of 1990 levels by 2030, there is urgent need for considering both carbon reduction as well as carbon capture and sequestration plans. Therefore, social housing developers such as CTHA, when calculating their carbon footprint, need to consider the embodied carbon of their property assets and their operational day-to-day carbon emissions, including those from their tenants’ activities. CTHA’s carbon sequestration plan proposes to offset and sequester carbon are discussed and illustrated, which includes an evaluation of mixed-use agricultural land for planting and coppice of native tree species for carbon sequestration. The plans discussed meet with the Welsh Government’s strategies for decarbonization in Wales, by delivering a “green” recovery that will sustain Wales into the future (beyond 2022).