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Great Places joins early adopters of new housing sustainability reporting standard

POSTED: 11/11/2020

ESG Social Housing Report

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Great Places has joined a group of 70 banks, investors and housing providers that have become early adopters of an industry-led sustainability reporting standard designed to unlock institutional investment to help tackle the UK’s deepening housing crisis.

The working group was set up in 2019 in response to concerns ESG investment was being inhibited by the absence of a common reporting standard. As with many other sectors across the economy, there has been a multitude of ESG reporting frameworks, resulting in reporting that lacked transparency, was prone to inconsistency and was incomparable.

The aim of the Standard is to provide a voluntary reporting framework for housing providers to report on their ESG performance in a transparent, consistent and comparable way. This will make it easier for lenders and investors to assess the ESG performance of housing providers, identify ESG risks and opportunities to create positive social and environmental outcomes.

So far, more than 70 organisations (39 housing associations and 31 lenders and investors) have committed to become early adopters of the Standard. Participating housing associations – including Great Places – will report against the standard on an annual basis. Meanwhile lenders and investors, including Lloyds Bank, LGIM Real Assets, M&G and NatWest, have agreed to use the standard in their investment and credit policies, processes and/or product design.

The Standard covers 48 criteria across ESG considerations such as affordability, fire safety and net zero carbon emissions, which are unveiled in a final report of the working group today. The report follows an earlier draft of the criteria, published in May as part of a sector-wide consultation. The consultation received feedback from more than 400 individuals, including representatives from housing associations, investors, trade bodies, financial experts and tenants’ groups.

The final report, detailing the Standard and the criteria, can be found at www.esgsocialhousing.co.uk

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