Sava Exhibits at Housing 2023.
This week, Housing 2023, the Chartered Institute of Housing’s (CIH) annual conference and housing festival, took place. Spanning from 27-29th June at Manchester Central, Europe’s largest housing festival proved to be another action-packed year, full of talks, awards, and drinks receptions.
On Monday night, the Women in Housing and Housing Heroes Awards ceremony, marked the start of this year’s event. The evening celebrated the sector’s leaders, innovators, and changemakers through a variety of different categories.
Sava would like to extend our applause to all the evening’s winners. A special mention goes to our clients who were successful, including Gloucester City Homes, who won employer of the year and Emma Palmer from Eastlight Community Homes, who won the lifetime achievement in housing.
Additionally, Sava would like to congratulate Pathways Academy for winning our sponsored category, Best Career Development Initiative. The award was presented by our Relationship Director, Colette Jones, with the help of her assistant, Huw Edwards.
As Tuesday rolled around, the doors were opened to the exhibition for the first time, with over 350 different sponsors and exhibitors from across the sector all gathered. It was great to see so many friendly faces stop by our stand, even if they were only there for the Curly Wurlys.
Amongst the exhibitor stands were a variety of conference stages which held talks covering the most pressing issues in housing, including homelessness, damp and mould, and fuel poverty.
The Unlock Net Zero stage led the conversation on decarbonisation, hosting highly engaging talks across all three-days of the event. The stage welcomed a plethora of industry experts who discussed emerging technologies, updates to standards and regulations, and funding mechanisms.
The Unlock Net Zero stage also welcomed our very own Andy Flook, who was on the panel for ‘Getting Retrofit Right with Standards and Data’. Andy spoke on the data journey, explaining how to turn unreliable data into useful information, that can be used to guide a retrofit strategy:
“Data is useless if we are not turning it into information. We need to know what we want to get out of our data and if the data we are looking at is actually what we need to see. Sit down with all the stakeholders in the PAS2035 journey and work out what you need to see.”
On Tuesday evening, the Unlock Net Zero Awards ceremony recognised and championed the journey to decarbonisation for the UK housing sector and the supporting supply chain. The evening celebrated many innovative and impactful projects, providing reassurance that inroads are being made to solve the challenges of reducing domestic emissions. Sava were delighted to attend the evening as finalists for the innovation of the year category.
After another busy day concluded on Wednesday, at our stand we swapped demos for drinks, raising a toast to mark Sava’s 40th anniversary. It was a great pleasure to honour the occasion at Housing, surrounded by many of the people who have supported us over the years.
The final day offered one last opportunity to claim some valuable freebies from exhibitors, catch the remaining talks of the conference, and speak to the event’s attendees.
As we turn the page on another year at Housing, it is safe to say everyone at Sava is already counting down the days until next year. Thanks to the CIH for organising an amazing event and of course all the exhibitors, speakers, and attendees who make Housing what it is!
