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...
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...