The Government review of the Decent Homes Standard is currently underway, and we were grateful for the opportunity to contribute our thoughts to the review. We believe the new Decent Homes can be an excellent mechanism for delivering environmental improvements that...
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...
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) published an “over and above” cost for energy efficient new build of £4,800 [1]. However, many building professionals we speak to cannot replicate this figure when they are planning an EPC A new build. We took a closer look at...
Coastal Housing, a Swansea based social landlord asked SHIFT Environment to develop an optimised retrofit strategy that would meet the Welsh Government target of Net Zero Carbon Housing. By interrogating Coastal Housing’s property data, the project also offered an...
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...
Our friends at Veritherm have looked at the Future Homes standard to see what it holds in store for the "as built" energy performance. Here's what they say: Current Performance Outlook The UK’s is committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and this is...
Our friends at Switchee have written a fine piece on how technology can help with CO2 reductions. Commercial Director at Swicthee, Alastair Thorpe [1], shares his thoughts…
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…
BEIS asked us, via our professional institute (IEMA[1]) for feedback on the recent Energy White Paper.
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):
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…
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.
Recently, a contact got in touch for thoughts on PassivHaus. This is what we replied:
Reducing carbon emissions from offices should be part of any organisation’s “net zero carbon” plan. But how do you do it?
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.
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).
A few months ago Inside Housing magazine asked us to comment on overheating risk. Here’s what we wrote: