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...
It was great to see so many people and from such a variety of backgrounds at the event to celebrate the launch of the book “Happiness by numbers”. Part of this variety would surely be because everyone wants to be happy, don’t they? On top of that, in the commercial...
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...
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...
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...
There are a couple of bills currently being discussed in the Houses of Parliament that are of interest to the private rented sector. These are the MEES (No2) Bill and EU Retained Bill. The first piece of legislation going through parliament of interest, is an...
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...
Now available from all good bookshops chartered environmentalist (and SHIFT Managing Director) Richard Lupo’s book Happiness By Numbers. In it, Richard draws on decades of expert research to provide a science-based framework that shows how your decisions and actions...