Blog

Levelling up metrics – the glaring gap

Levelling up metrics – the glaring gap

UK Government’s Levelling Up agenda aims to give ‘everyone the opportunity to flourish'. This “people” focussed aim seems to align with other emerging trends:  examples include “placemaking” [1], social value, wellbeing and the “S” part of ESG.  Whilst this is a...

read more
Water efficiency targets for UK housing

Water efficiency targets for UK housing

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...

read more
How can digital tech support healthy homes?

How can digital tech support healthy homes?

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...

read more
SHIFT Gold accreditation for new build – our response

SHIFT Gold accreditation for new build – our response

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...

read more
Decarbonising Social Housing – the ALMO perspective

Decarbonising Social Housing – the ALMO perspective

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...

read more
Consultation launched – SHIFT 2023 updates

Consultation launched – SHIFT 2023 updates

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...

read more
New ESG reporting requirements approved

New ESG reporting requirements approved

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...

read more
Developing a climate resilience standard for social landlords

Developing a climate resilience standard for social landlords

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...

read more
Economic growth and net zero

Economic growth and net zero

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...

read more
Hanham Hall

Hanham Hall

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...

read more
RdSAP awareness training

RdSAP awareness training

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...

read more
Completing an EPC analysis of your housing stock

Completing an EPC analysis of your housing stock

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,...

read more
Placemaking – DLUHC’s National Design Guide

Placemaking – DLUHC’s National Design Guide

With the Placemaking, Levelling Up and Social Value agendas gaining more traction, SHIFT highlights the role that social landlords can play in contributing to these agendas and provides an insight into SHIFT’s Placemaking metrics. The Department for Levelling Up,...

read more
How green is your electricity tariff?

How green is your electricity tariff?

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...

read more