 Taking greening... literally Usually the one place in your house that you won’t find a (traditional) plug socket, you might not think of the bathroom when it comes to energy saving. But, aside from the obvious water savings (which can still save you money if your water is metered!), there are plenty of ways to cut your carbon footprint by heating less water, switching to LED light bulbs and making plastic-free swaps.
So, water you waiting for? Time to make some savings.
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 This month's guest blog post comes from our local partner, Sustainable Merton! Read more as they tackle five tricky-to-recycle items and some creative ways of reusing and upcycling them, including:
 We are pleased to announce that with over £30,000 of investment and additional booster funding from the Community Shares Booster Programme, we have successfully raised £50,000 to install four air source heat pumps at Devas Club in Battersea! We'd like to firstly sincerely thank everyone who invested in our share offer and welcome them into our CREW. This was our very first share offer, launched mid-pandemic, mid-Brexit deadline, with Christmas and lockdown to contend with. With a lot of hard work and community support, we made it happen and we could not be happier. A special shoutout goes to all our members and Directors, Andre Pinho who assessed our documentation for the Standard Mark certification, the team at the Community Shares Unit for supporting our booster funding application, Simmons & Simmons for their pro bono legal support, and countless other community groups who helped us spread the word. But don't worry if you missed this round, we'll be back with more exciting funding opportunities very soon - watch this space and register your interest here!
This month, we co-hosted our first monthly Web Chat with Merton-based charity Sustainable Merton
Over 20 people attended the short 45-minute discussion on 'Greening your home for less' where we tested their energy knowledge and discussed ways to reduce our energy bills and carbon footprint. The best place to start is by testing how well you know your home's energy performance so you can start improving it! Here are a few tips that might surprise you... Did you know...?
Watch the recording to find out more and test your own knowledge!  A couple of weeks ago, we hosted a fireside Q&A with CREW members, friends and family to discuss their burning questions about our current community share offer with Devas Club in Battersea. We had great feedback on the answers we gave to our questions and, since hosting the Q&A we have received an additional £15,000 of investments!
In case you missed it, we have made the presentation slides and the Zoom recording available for you to watch here. If you have any more questions, please do send us a message at info@crewenergy.london and we'd be happy to help.  We’re pleased to announce that CREW Energy’s community share offer has been awarded the official Community Shares Standard Mark!
Both our share offer document and our business plan have been under assessment by an independent licensed assessor since late 2020 to ensure that:
 CREW is aiming to raise £50,000 throughout January 2021 to fund a renewable heat project in south-west London with our longstanding partners, Devas Club. The share offer launched on 14 December 2020 and will be running throughout January 2021. On 8 January 2021, we reached £10,000 of our investment target! Shareholders will entirely fund the cost of 4 community-owned heat pumps to be installed at the youth club and, in return, will get a targeted 3% return on their investment. Not only will these heat pumps generate huge energy savings in the Devas building – £962 per year in fact – they will reduce carbon emissions in the area by 17 tonnes CO2e annually and provide CREW with a means of hosting yet more climate outreach and education across Wandsworth, Merton and Lambeth. A challenging but pivotal year for a share offer While community share offers are an established means of funding community energy, ours is the first of its kind in London to focus on renewable heat! Luckily for us, heat pumps have been a hot topic in 2020 through the Government’s Green Homes Grant and the so-called Green Plan, where they were cited as a key element in the UK’s race to net zero by 2050. This certainly made it easier to shout about the green power of the mighty heat pump. However, in the midst of a pandemic, it sometimes feels like there is, understandably, little room in people’s newsfeeds for a community project. This means we’ve had to work extremely hard all through 2020 to not only combat lockdown delays in surveying the building and quoting for the heat pumps, but also to navigate the fast-paced news sphere (not to mention launching at Christmas time and the Brexit deadline) in an entirely digital campaign! Find out more about investing in CREW Energy’s community share offer here. Or follow our journey on social media and through our newsletter.  We're working in partnership with Sustainable Merton to combine our climate and sustainability efforts. We will be sharing regular blog posts from them on themes that fall under the sustainability umbrella, but perhaps outside CREW's core area of energy efficiency.
This month's post is on the theme of food and comes from Blanca Peña-Méndez, Sustainable Merton Community Champion (Food Action Team) and Trustee. Click here to read more.  ‘Greening your home’ has been a hot topic of late, thanks to the Green Homes Grant. And now that many of us are spending more time at home (working or otherwise), we’re more aware of our energy use than ever before.
This series of blog posts is designed to show you how energy-efficient home improvements don’t have to cost you a pretty penny. Read more on how you can save money and energy in your home for free or on the cheap with CREW! This week, in the kitchen… With lots of talk about the newly announced Green Homes Grant, we wanted to break it down for you with an explanation of measures covered, the amount of support you can apply for and more. Enjoy! |
