We have a had a few queries recently about carbon credit schemes that pay landlords for making carbon saving improvements to stock. Whilst we haven’t looked at any schemes in detail, we do have some thoughts. Here is one of our answers. Thanks for your time...
IEMA, our governing institute, has issued new guidance to help with climate related financial disclosures [1]. The Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations and resulting disclosures are proving to be hugely influential and take-up in...
A new Global Commission on Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking has been set up [1] with the aim of driving international momentum towards eradicating forced labour, ending modern slavery and human trafficking – in line with UN goals. It is part funded by the UK...
A couple of new consultations are out which will have implications for managing environmental issues in Scotland. The first is about biodiversity. The second is, perhaps surprisingly to some, about water efficiency ‘Tackling the nature emergency’ [1] is based around...
There is currently no sensible financial arrangement for funding the transformation of social homes to net zero. And no-one seems to be talking about long-term plans either. After chats with a few FD’s, investors, and the Green Finance Institute, we thought it might...
In readiness for 2025, the Government has issued its response to a consultation on the detail of the Future Homes Standard (FHS). Others [1] [2] , who have been closer to the consultation process, have noted that the proposed standards are far weaker than initial...
Amidst a growing importance in Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) for new developments, the lack of practical metrics for UK social landlords to manage biodiversity and green spaces for existing land portfolios has become apparent. This gap presents an opportunity to explore...
Each year we upgrade our methodologies for environmental reporting. The main reason we do this is to ensure that our methodologies align with new national methodologies or UK environmental strategies. For example, last year new water efficiency targets were...
Estimating CO2 emissions from purchased goods and services is notoriously difficult, especially for larger companies where there can be hundreds of thousands of purchases a year. The task is made doubly difficult when the description box of the same purchased...
It’s great to see that prospective students are thinking about environmental degrees. A client asked for some advice on behalf of his son who is passionate about zoology but doesn’t see many career options. We shared our thoughts: Great that your son is...
Why is there a picture of apples on a blog about energy saving? We spoke to energy monitoring software providers GridDuck to find out. Here’s what they say: With fuel shortages, unprecedented price hikes and the bankruptcy of large industry names, energy...
‘Science-based targets (SBTs) specify how much and how quickly a company would need to reduce its’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to align with the goals of the Paris Agreement.’ [1]. This is an initiative set by the partnership between: World Resource...
Since its invention 199 years ago in England, Original Portland Cement (OPC) has become a critical building block for modern civilisation’s infrastructure. However, despite advancements in reducing emissions produced in cement production, it still makes up as much as...
Real estate is entering a challenging period of transition to net zero, where we need to re-engineer the way we value, finance, design, construct, refurbish, and operate our buildings. At the recent ‘Beyond Green’ conference we met Lucienne Mosquera and John Flexen of...
At SHIFT we closely monitor all relevant national policy, strategy and legislative changes related to sustainability and the built environment and carefully consider any resultant updates that are required to our environmental audit process. In addition to our ongoing...
The current state of the environment is in a bad way currently, with biodiversity being shown to have significantly decreased over the last 50 years. ‘As a result, the UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth’ according to the ‘State of Nature’...
The new ‘Energy Bill’, previously, the Energy Security Bill, looks at reforming the 10-year-old Energy Act (2013). This is to get the legislation up to speed with not only current technology, but the needs of consumers and businesses alike. The bill has reached...
Right now, air travel contributes to global CO2 emissions and even more flights are projected. One way to cut emissions would be to get people to fly less. But sometimes this is a hard ask for businesses that consider flying essential and, families wanting holidays...
As the global community continues to grapple with the urgent need to address environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, standards and frameworks for sustainability reporting have become essential tools for businesses, investors, and regulators alike. The...
Following our carbon footprint work with Bromford and engagement with their finance contacts, we produced an article for Social Housing Magazine [1]. The article was co-written by Imran Mubeen, Director of Treasury at Bromford and Richard Lupo, Managing Director at...
Drones, or to give them their technical title, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), are a rapidly advancing, versatile technology that is already having a major impact on a variety of sectors. Asher, one of our SHIFT Environmental Assessors, undertook research...
Following lots of requests from our client base, we have seen that there is a clear and necessary desire to engage the supply chain in a meaningful way. This makes sense, as the supply chain can have massive impacts on carbon footprints and responsible sourcing of...
Midland Heart have produced an excellent case study on their recent completion of homes intended to comply with the Future Homes Standard. The standard aims to ensure that all new homes built from 2025 will produce 75-80% less carbon emissions than homes built under...
At SHIFT we work hard to deliver impactful environmental reporting. We want to make sure that our reports provide clients with the information they need to make environmental improvements. We like to understand what is particularly useful and informative to each...
We’ve had some queries lately from construction companies looking to report their scope 1,2 and 3 CO2 emissions. Specifically, they have been after an “off the shelf system” that they could simply plug data in to as an when they have it and then the system would churn...
At SHIFT, we know that one of the most difficult things when monitoring energy use in a building is getting the right monitoring equipment installed. Once we have the data we can do wonders with it, but getting the data is a key part of the process. Our friends at...
As well environmental reporting for social landlords we also work in other sectors. Here’s an example where one of our Stroud-based office colleagues, Caroline, wanted advice on transforming her house to an ecohome. This was very much a pilot to see if we could...
The National Housing Maintenance Forum (NHMF) recently asked us to write our thoughts on how asset management and residents’ wellbeing may develop in the near future. Here’s what we wrote: Talking about “happiness” in an NHMF blog may seem a bit of an odd subject...
A social housing client recently asked us a great question. They were aware that their new build department had lots of excellent data on the sustainability of their new homes. They were also aware that it would be useful to transfer that data over to asset...
At a recent National Housing Federation (NHF) event we met with fellow “sector supplier” Dynamis. As we know that NHF do a rigorous check on who they classify as a sector supplier we were very pleased to meet them. We found that they are a solar PV installer firm...
We were delighted to be selected last year to deliver a project on behalf of several Primary Care Networks to carry out environmental surveys at their GP surgeries. For each surgery we looked at carbon emissions resulting from their energy use, including an assessment...
The UK has been busy establishing domestic water efficiency targets to prepare ourselves for climate change. Here’s a quick review. England The government has recently released its latest water efficiency policy paper for England [1]. Several objectives have been...
Coastline Housing in Cornwall has collaborated on a research and innovation project called Smartline, which has included the installation of smart sensors in some of their homes. We asked Smartline to share the details of their interesting and pertinent project: How...
One of our SHIFT clients recently asked us a question that is no doubt on lots of people’s minds – so here’s the question and our response: Question: We are delivering housing (retrofitted) for some of the poorest homes in the UK. With this in mind, is it more...
We have received a flurry of requests on how a new build development can attain “SHIFT Gold”. On the one hand this is a great sign that the SHIFT scheme is having a real impact on what gets built. On the other hand, it’s not the intention for SHIFT to accredit any...
In Montreal last month, the global biodiversity conference ‘COP15’ adopted a new, 10-year global framework for nature recovery. After what the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity called a “sometimes fractious” two-week meeting, the Kunming-Montreal Global...
The National Federation of ALMOs (NFA) have recently published a report for the NFA Best Practice Series [1] addressing lessons from the ALMO sector regarding decarbonising social housing. This blog outlines areas where ALMOs differ from housing associations, but it...
It’s that time of year that we’ve all been waiting for… SHIFT’s annual consultation on our updates for next year’s environmental reporting and audit process. We continuously monitor national policy, strategy and legislative changes related to sustainability and the...
In 2019, as part of the European Green Deal, the EU announced the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) which has recently been approved and will soon require companies to publish detailed information on their environmental, social and governance...
It is becoming increasingly important to ensure homes are resilient to the impacts of climate change. Around 20% of UK homes already overheat, even outside of heatwave events, while 1 in 6 homes are at risk of some form of flooding, and the risks of both flooding and...
Soon after Liz Truss became prime minister, BEIS initiated a “Net Zero Review” which aimed to establish how net zero targets can contribute to an economic growth target of 2.5% [1]. Given all the recent U-turns on both economic and carbon policy we’re not sure what...
SHIFT Environment has been providing environmental reporting services for built environment clients since 2008. Included in those services is compliance with the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) regulations where we have our in-house qualified lead assessor. ...
Here at SHIFT, we’re pretty keen on sustainability in the built environment, which is why we decided to head over to Hanham Hall, on the outskirts of Bristol, for our September social outing. Hanham Hall was lauded as the first large-scale housing scheme intended to...
Many residential building owners will be familiar already with RdSAP software, but what are the calculations behind it? SHIFT’s popular “RdSAP awareness training” is ideal for those who want to understand these calculations that underpin the SAP/EPC rating. Many...
Many social landlords contact us here at SHIFT because they are committed to developing feasible plans to achieve Net Zero (or at least EPC C) homes across their stock. We have supported lots of clients to create a roadmap via an EPC analysis of their existing homes,...
A green electricity tariff can be labelled ‘green’ if some or all units of electricity purchased are ‘matched’ by units of energy generated from a renewable energy source. It can be difficult to separate a reliable green tariff from a greenwashing tariff as...
Job description for an Environmental Champion Recently a client asked us if we knew of a job description available anywhere for an Environmental Champion. We know that appointing Environmental Champions is a popular approach to promoting sustainability issues,...
In a summer when all three of the issues in this blog title have occurred, it’s good to know that Government is preparing for the third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) [1]. It follows on from the national risk assessment [2] that identified, amongst other items,...
Up until now, policy intended to make buildings more efficient has focused on operational emissions. Embodied carbon within construction is not assessed or controlled, therefore it is no surprise that little or no progress has been achieved in reduction. Engineering...
In May the Welsh government launched a consultation on its draft Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) 2023 to replace the existing standard, introduced in 2002. The proposals include new requirements for consideration of biodiversity and water poverty as well as...
Establishing a meaningful metric for biodiversity has long been an elusive task. Perhaps a new approach could provide such a metric for strategic decision making. The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has released a second draft version of its...
The UK’s Green Finance Strategy, published in July 2019, had three objectives: helping the financial sector align with net-zero; mobilising private investment that supports sustainable growth; and ensuring businesses can benefit from the transition to net-zero. The...
Of the UK’s total energy consumption 24% is attributable to the domestic sector [1] and of this embodied carbon could account for 6-10%. Despite this embodied carbon is not, in general practice, a consideration when a building is designed, specified and constructed....
A new Part L of the building regulations will come into effect on June 15th 2022. This is billed as an interim uplift towards the Future Homes Standard scheduled for 2025. The new uplift focuses on much better fabric standards and is intended to reduce CO2 emissions...
Last year the Department for Transport published its Decarbonising Transport strategy[1] for addressing the greenhouse gas emissions from transport (responsible for 27% of the UK’s emissions in 2019). The Strategic Priorities include accelerating the modal shift to...
This roundtable session took place on the 21st March 2022, and included social landlords representing over 60,000 UK homes. The key points of discussion were: Reporting guidelines Data requirements Benefits of SECR reporting What is SECR SECR stands for Streamlined...
The cost of transforming our homes to net zero is going to be huge. One estimate puts the cost of getting all English housing association homes to net zero at ~£60bn. For context, the present Government has pledged £3.8bn over 10 years for decarbonising social...
A whole range of social landlords, investors and other stakeholders love our environmental reporting. They use the data to build meaningful strategies, produce ESG reports, various compliance reports and monitor progress towards a sustainable housing stock and...
Background We have launched the SHIFT “social” section which is FREE to all UK social landlords. The aim of this blog is to a) explain the extent of our involvement on the “S” part of ESG reporting and b) to suggest new, meaningful placemaking metrics. SHIFT delivers...
Recently a client asked us about scope 3 carbon emissions from investments in pension schemes and whether this is something that is discussed amongst the social housing sector. Carbon emissions can be associated with the investment of pension schemes, so how...
Many clients have asked us about embodied carbon of construction materials. Not only is this interesting for understanding complete carbon emissions from operations, but it also will be a factor (amongst many others) in deciding between refurbishment or demolish and...
At SHIFT, we are committed to keeping the SHIFT environmental standard up-to-date. This means considering continual improvements in line with national policy updates and feedback we receive from SHIFT landlords. Annual feedback is vital to ensure we are capturing the...
Building new homes to EPC A rating is an approach we champion at SHIFT and with 25% of our landlords having already built to this standard, the demand for a roundtable to share advice and experiences was high! Across two sessions, 18 social housing providers managing...
At SHIFT we are seeing an increasing adoption of net zero carbon strategy development across several sectors. Recently, we’ve seen Health and Social Care organisations develop their plans to get to net zero. Alternative Futures Group (AFG), a health and social care...
Our friends at Safecility told us about some of their remote testing innovations that can help reduce carbon emissions. Here’s what they say: While the current spotlight is on long term deep property retrofits to enhance homes and make them easier to heat – there are...
While there has been a focus on reducing energy demand for heating, with global temperatures set to increase, there has been little consideration for future for cooling systems demand. There is no doubt that in recent years, the UK has experienced record breaking dry...
A client paid us a very nice compliment about our Energy White Paper response[1]. They also asked whether they should sign up to a tree planting scheme. We’ve been asked about this topic a few times, so we checked the scheme and shared our thoughts. Tree planting...
Following the International Day of Happiness (20th March 2021) we have compiled a number of statistics to see how close we are to reaching a goal of 100% long-term wellbeing. Since March 2020, there is no surprise that we have faced unprecedented challenges, and our...
Following on from our blog on the New Homes Ombudsman, Paul Surin [1], IBM’s Global Lead on the Built Environment and BIM, shared his experience of very poor quality new build. He thought he was moving into a highly energy efficient performing home, but after moving...
As the provision of new homes across the UK continues to grow (MHCLG, 2020), it is essential that these homes meet adequate standards and building quality does not suffer. The announcement of a New Homes Ombudsman, by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick MP, will assist...
The Government has updated its Fuel Poverty strategy. The long-term targets remain unchanged since the last one, but there are a few nuances that are worth looking at. Overall, the strategy applies to all tenures and is described as a “living document”. There is no...
To practice what we preach, we assessed our own environmental impacts. Our reporting period was 1st October 2019 – 30th September 2020 and here’s how we did: Offices Our office space has no gas supply, and instead uses a ground source heat pump for space heating....
BEIS asked us, via our professional institute (IEMA[1]) for feedback on the recent Energy White Paper. For domestic properties there is a lot mentioned: EPC targets, new homes, hydrogen, electric heating and heat networks. We have some suggestions and information...
Our friends at Chirpy Heat have written an overview of the latest regulations and kindly given us permission to share. Here’s what they say (originally published 12th November 2020): Last Friday BEIS (finally) not only published their response to the Heat Network...
Average long term UK personal wellbeing has increased to 86.16% compared to 84.58% when we monitored it 5 months ago. But there are some data caveats: As seen in the June 2020 update, air quality has not improved as dramatically due to lockdown as expected and as the...
Introduction A quick word search on the new “The Charter for Social Housing Residents Social Housing White Paper” resulted in 5 specific mentions of “climate change” so we took a deeper look with an environmental perspective. We’ve also suggested actions that...
Recently, a contact got in touch for thoughts on PassivHaus. This is what we replied: I’ve not personally built one myself, but I’ve worked with a few people that have. I’ve also done some cursory analysis of energy certificates. On that basis I’ll share...
Reducing carbon emissions from offices should be part of any organisation’s “net zero carbon” plan. But how do you do it? How do you know which parts of the building to upgrade first? Which interventions will have the most impact? How much does it cost? How much...
Tracing the amount of responsibly sourced materials used in repairs and maintenance is hugely important to maintain a strong reputation and to avoid costly mistakes. However, tracking the flow of materials is a massively labour intensive. Due to the high volume of...
At SHIFT we are pleased that our environmental reporting scheme for social landlords aligns extremely well with the current ESG reporting criteria (see our publications page for the SHIFT ESG matrix). We also know that environmental protection is crucial for our...
A few months ago Inside Housing magazine asked us to comment on overheating risk. Here’s what we wrote: As if Covid-19 isn’t enough, summer is fast approaching and extreme weather events are high on national and international risk registers. Met Office central...
Average long term UK personal wellbeing has increased to 84.58% compared to 83.69% when we monitored it 3 months ago. But there are some data caveats: Good: Air quality has improved slightly, but not as dramatically as some news reports maintain. It’s quite a messy...
Having carried out several supply chain surveys for our clients, we have been pretty disappointed with the results in the responsible materials section. Although there seems to be some anecdotal successes, there is a lack of a consistent metric that enables...
From the beginning of the financial year 2019/20, the Companies (Directors’ Report) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Energy and Carbon Report) Regulations 2018 applies. This new legislation extends the carbon reporting obligations from quoted companies to also...
This article was originally written for National Housing Federation to promote their board excellence conference: The latest UK statistics show that we emit over 350 million tonnes CO2 per year. That’s a very big number, but what does it mean? To relay the importance...
Green spaces are hugely important to people. As well as providing a place of recreation, they also provide a degree of flood attenuation, summer cooling, air cleansing, biodiversity and carbon sequestration. All these benefits are increased when the amount of...
At SHIFT we help landlords prepare roadmaps for net zero carbon. One of the things we have noticed is that including the new build departments in holistic net zero roadmaps can lead to significant savings to whole life costs. This is even if there is a little “over...
SHIFT, the sustainability standard for housing and the supply chain, works with social landlords that are dedicated to creating a sustainable future, delivering high quality homes and improving the wellbeing of both residents and employees. Recently, many clients have...
To help you save time and resources we have written a Step-by-Step guide to help aid and encourage our clients to sign PDF forms electronically. It saves resources by eliminating the need to print so many documents (saving paper and ink) and reduces the amount...
To mark International Day of Happiness (20th March 2020) we’ve put together some statistics to show how close we are to a goal of 100% long term wellbeing. These figures include environmental protection which is so crucial to securing our supplies of basic needs such...
Our SHIFT Assessor, Sam McConnochie, has recently learnt that he won the Royal Geographical Society Planning and Environment Research Group’s prize! This is a national award that goes to the best undergraduate dissertation relating to planning, environmental...
Over 280 local and major councils have declared a climate emergency in 2019 alone and many housing associations are looking to identify what they can do to ensure they are responding positively to council ambitions for carbon reduction. With the Forest of Dean...
A few months ago, Inside Housing magazine asked us to contribute to an article on social housing and climate change. We based our information on our Housing 2050 research which can be downloaded from here: Housing 2050. Here’s what we wrote: Introduction Government...
The Government’s recent Green Finance Strategy states, “The Government expects all listed companies and large asset owners to be disclosing in line with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations by 2022.’ There is no specific...
There has been a slight decline in overall happiness and wellbeing, with the specific environmental data revealing that our environmental security continues to face sustained pressure. Water security has been negatively impacted this year and this is most likely...
At our recent SHIFT event entitled, “Sustainability and Value For Money”, we heard from specialist speakers who highlighted the financial benefits to social landlords from pursuing environmental strategies. Representatives from 18 housing associations managing over...
For various reasons, including our carbon footprint, we decided on a staycation this year. The accommodation was our own home and no long car journeys or plane rides were involved. We “visited” 5 countries, had a couple of ‘resort days’, (i.e. chill out and mooch...
A housing association client of ours needed to replace old storage heaters with a new electrical heating system. Rather than a like-for-like replacement, they wisely decided to monitor the energy and cost performance of 3 different potential replacement systems before...
In July 2019, the UK Government revealed its eagerly awaited Green Finance Strategy which signalled that investment and funding shall be made available for green projects such as homes and other infrastructure. The strategy aims to put financial services at the heart...
There has been a slight improvement in overall happiness and wellbeing, with the specific environmental data revealing that our environmental security continues to face sustained pressure. Water security has been negatively impacted this year and this is most likely...
