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,...
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,...
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...
The Department of Levelling Up invited us to comment on their review of the Decent Homes Standard so far and here’s a summary of our response. As a team of professional environmentalists, we carry out annual environmental assessments for around 60 UK social...