Flood events are horrible experiences for everyone affected. The disruption during the flood event and the long clean-up after the event are stressful periods. Whilst planning rules generally reduce risks for new homes, there remains the issue of what to do about...
Our friends at Greenacre Group have highlighted the connections between leadership skills and the sustainability agenda. Here’s what they wrote. As social housing providers get to grips with climate change and endeavour to drive forward sustainable solutions to the...
The impacts of climate change are clear (flood risk, overheating risk, food and water security). Forthcoming regulations [1] will require organisations to evaluate and mitigate the risks that climate change presents to their operations. However, the regulations will...
It’s great to have a strategic knowledge of how to get a sustainable housing stock. At SHIFT we’re also keen to keep up to date with the practical side of retrofit. How big is a heat pump? Where does the ducting on MVHR go? How thick is internal wall insulation?...
Background We have launched the SHIFT “social” section which is FREE to all UK social landlords. The aim of this blog is to a) explain the extent of our involvement on the “S” part of ESG reporting and b) to suggest new, meaningful placemaking metrics. SHIFT delivers...
Many social landlords and other building owners are carrying out or planning energy efficiency improvement work to their housing and building stock. It’s one thing to make the improvements, but it’s another to ensure that they actually reduce environmental impacts....
Over the past year, we’ve had some SHIFT landlords asking about internal carbon pricing and how it can be used to help decarbonise social housing. We’ve done the research for you and summarised below. What is carbon pricing? Carbon pricing can be used to recognise...
Recently a client asked us about scope 3 carbon emissions from investments in pension schemes and whether this is something that is discussed amongst the social housing sector. Carbon emissions can be associated with the investment of pension schemes, so how...
Many clients have asked us about embodied carbon of construction materials. Not only is this interesting for understanding complete carbon emissions from operations, but it also will be a factor (amongst many others) in deciding between refurbishment or demolish and...
At SHIFT, we are committed to keeping the SHIFT environmental standard up-to-date. This means considering continual improvements in line with national policy updates and feedback we receive from SHIFT landlords. Annual feedback is vital to ensure we are capturing the...
Many organisations have already commented on the “Heat and Buildings Strategy” released last week [1, 2]. Rather than repeat criticisms or otherwise for the strategy, we take a look at two key points which should aid people working in the built environment. EPC’s are...
One of the key insights we took away from National Housing Federation’s Housing Summit last week, was the prediction that the “levelling up” agenda would manifest itself as a “placemaking” agenda. Commentators thought that political and financial resources would flow...
Building new homes to EPC A rating is an approach we champion at SHIFT and with 25% of our landlords having already built to this standard, the demand for a roundtable to share advice and experiences was high! Across two sessions, 18 social housing providers managing...
Our Sam McConnochie details how he set up the SHIFT [1] portal which helps social landlords report on all environmental issues and provides an excellent audit trail. Here’s what he wrote: Working with a web development agency, we built the SHIFT portal from concept...
The IPCC’s [1] latest report made the headlines a few weeks ago. The report confirmed that climate change is real, it presents adverse effects to us all and it is caused by human activity. For environmental professionals this is hardly news, but it is good to see...
At SHIFT we are seeing an increasing adoption of net zero carbon strategy development across several sectors. Recently, we’ve seen Health and Social Care organisations develop their plans to get to net zero. Alternative Futures Group (AFG), a health and social care...
With environmental and sustainability requirements becoming more prevalent across a variety of sectors, UK Government has established a new independent expert group to advise on standards for green investment. The Green Technical Advisory Group (GTAG), made up from a...
The sugar and salt taxes in the recently announced national food strategy made the headlines [1]. However, the original brief for the author was to review the entire food system. Many of the resultant recommendations relate to environmental protection. The bulk of...
The “Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill” has completed the first stage of a 12 stage journey to becoming UK law [1]. Inspired by a similar law in Wales, the proposed bill, will require public bodies to improve “the economic, social, environmental and cultural...
Our friends at Safecility told us about some of their remote testing innovations that can help reduce carbon emissions. Here’s what they say: While the current spotlight is on long term deep property retrofits to enhance homes and make them easier to heat – there are...