Scottish Housing Day: Celebrating PoLHA’s commitment to sustainability

With Scottish Housing Day focusing on sustainable housing, Port of Leith Housing Association (PoLHA) has demonstrated its commitment to sustainability by initiating an exercise to calculate the carbon footprint of its corporate estate (six offices and fleet) by March 2023. 

PoLHA also set up a sustainability group, consisting of staff members from across the organisation, in August 2021. The group has created a sustainability delivery plan for 2022–2025. This plan incorporates projects and initiatives, ranging from net zero new-build housing provision to greener office supplies and refreshments. 

Four members of staff have completed climate emergency training, and the organisation is developing its properties to facilitate sustainable behaviours among tenants, including installing bike storage and creating green spaces such as drying greens and gardening areas.  

PoLHA has also commenced the construction of our first passivhaus homes at Constitution Street, and it is upgrading its trades fleet in preparation for the Edinburgh Low-emission Zone. 

There will be a staff clean-up of the Water of Leith and the sustainability group is planning a series of online activities to coincide with the UN Biodiversity Conference COP15 in Montreal in December 2022. 

There is a project underway to provide energy and money saving advice to tenants in autumn 2022, which will include sustainable practices. 

PoLHA Group Chief Executive, Heather Kiteley, said: “I’m encouraged by our work that supports our tenants’ efforts to be more sustainable, from providing bike storage to drying greens and gardening areas. By focusing on what we can do as an organisation to be more sustainable, along with how we support tenants, I’m positive we can continue to make a significant contribution to sustainable housing and the wider sustainability agenda.”