Leading housing provider Stonewater has achieved a ‘Gold’ accreditation in its recent Sustainable Homes Index for Tomorrow (SHIFT) assessment.
The sustainability standard reviews housing providers on 21 environmental areas including carbon emissions, energy use and biodiversity to provide a comprehensive overview of each organisation’s carbon footprint.
This year, Stonewater scored higher than the 57% required for a ‘Gold’ rating, moving the organisation up to 3rd place out of the 40 most recent SHIFT assessments.
The organisation performed particularly well on its customer engagement in energy efficiency, with SHIFT estimating that this activity alone had enabled Stonewater to save 45.72 kg CO2 for each home it manages, compared to 10.29 kg CO2 in 2020.
“With rising energy costs affecting everyone across the country, the need for communicating effectively to residents about energy efficiency to combat fuel poverty has never been more important,” commented Adam Masters, Assistant Director – Environment and Sustainability at Stonewater. “Knowing our work is going some way in alleviating the pressures on our customers, whilst reducing emissions, is a great achievement.”
In addition to customer engagement, Stonewater performed the best out of all 40 social landlords that have undertaken the SHIFT assessment, for carbon emissions related to maintenance activities following the successful launch of its Contractor Sustainability Forum — which has improved its supply chain reporting significantly.
Work on improving data related to homes and heating systems, alongside its retrofit, capital investment and new-build development programmes also contributed to the organisation’s percentage of homes above EPC band C, moving from 62.8% to 76.4%.
“Providing affordable, high quality, energy-efficient homes is at the core of what we do,” continued Adam. “Whilst achieving SHIFT Gold is an incredible achievement, we’re committed to seeing how we can further improve our SHIFT results for the benefit and wellbeing of our customers, colleagues and the planet too.”
Read a full copy of Stonewater’s SHIFT report, here: https://www.stonewater.org/about-us/investor-relations/sustainability/
Find out more about the work Stonewater is doing to decarbonise its homes and increase the energy efficiency of its homes, by listening to its podcast On the Air.
Header image ©malp/AdobeStock
