Barratt Developments win coveted NextGeneration Innovation Award

The NextGeneration initiative, which benchmarks the sustainability performance of UK homebuilders, has awarded Barratt Developments the 2023 Innovation Award for the eHome2 project.

For the first time this year, participants of the NextGeneration Core and Project services were invited to share submissions, alongside the Benchmark members, providing the opportunity for smaller homebuilders to demonstrate their initiatives.

The award recognises homebuilders that have demonstrated initiatives that exhibit best practice innovation to address the challenges of sustainability in the sector. This year, the award celebrates Barratt's pioneering efforts towards a low carbon and climate resilient future.

With rising energy costs, water shortages, and the need to cut carbon emissions, Barratt has partnered with The University of Salford, Bellway Homes and Saint-Gobain, to create an industry-leading project that will test the effects of climate change and look at ways that the homes of the future can withstand more extreme weather conditions and offer more affordable running costs.

The project showcases a three-bed detached house built inside the world-leading Energy House 2.0 facility at the University of Salford, offering world leading research and academic expertise in Smart Living. The climate-controlled chamber can simulate extreme weather conditions to replicate the climate in 95% of the earth’s environments.

The home features a range of new technologies, each of which could contribute to lowering the amount of carbon produced when a home is built, and the carbon footprint of the people who live in the home. eHome2 achieves a 100% reduction in carbon through the use of solar PV and an air source heat pump and has the ability to switch between heat sources and renewable technologies. Revolutionary smart home controls automate the eHome2 to maximise the efficiency of all technologies installed without any input required from the homeowner.

By using an innovative smartphone app, customers can understand the difference between genuine water use and where water is being either wasted or is leaking. This has the potential to reduce water usage, and the energy used to heat the water, by around 25%.

In addition, the eHome2 is also trialling technology to support an ageing population through adaptive living smart home controls.

The data, tracked by 95 sensors and kilometres of wires, would usually take months or years to collect to evaluate performance of a new design or technology. But this initiative enables researchers to precisely control the environment to within half a degree, so they can gather data in a few weeks.

Oliver Novakovic, Technical & Innovation Director at Barratt Developments, said: “We are very pleased to have won the NextGeneration Innovation Award for the eHome2 project. This is apt recognition for one of the most important innovation projects ever undertaken by Barratt to ensure that the zero carbon homes we build in the future can withstand the rapidly changing climate.”

In addition to recognising Barratt’s achievements, Northstone were awarded the Innovation Commendation for 2023. This was to recognise their outstanding work with AppleCast, a Wigan based charity that prioritises those with special educational needs (SEN) and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The charity offers alternative education, supporting young people gain skills in animal husbandry, carpentry, fishery management, aquaponics, and construction. Northstone’s contributions have provided AppleCast learners with the opportunity to learn both carpentry and construction skills, plus the provision of modern new classroom spaces.  Ultimately, this collaboration looks to pave the way for Northstone to extend apprenticeship and work experience opportunities to those at AppleCast who express an interest in the property and construction industry.

Northstone’s CEO, Phil Wilson, said: “The work that Neil and his Applecast team do is genuinely life-changing, helping create bright futures for young people at a time when they need support. We’re proud to have played a part in the Applecast story and our involvement has been so rewarding. It’s been an inspiring partnership that we hope to build on.”

Bernadette Barry, Head of Planning and Sustainability at Northstone said: “It’s been fantastic to strike up a really meaningful partnership with Apple Cast and identify lots of ways in which we can support their brilliant work. With their focus on getting young people the right skills and experience to have a successful future in construction, it was the perfect fit for us and we’re really pleased our partnership has been commended in the Next Generation Benchmark Innovation award, 2023”.

NextGeneration was established in 2006 to drive transformation in the sustainability performance of the UK’s homebuilding sector. The Executive Committee consists of Homes England, Lloyds Bank, UKGBC and the initiative’s secretariat JLL.