More than 60 banks, investors and housing associations have become early adopters of a new sustainability reporting standard aimed at addressing the UK’s housing crisis.
Launched today, The Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing is a voluntary standard covering 12 themes and 48 criteria across ESG considerations such as affordability, fire safety and net-zero carbon emissions. These are aligned to international frameworks and standards including the SDGs, Global Reporting Initiative, SASB, ICMA and LMA Principles.
Among the early names to sign up are BlackRock, M&G Investments, Rathbone Greenbank, LGIM Real Assets and Schroders.
“Social housing represents a particularly attractive proposition for both ESG and impact investors since it is an area that attracts significant amounts of market capital whilst clearly delivering something socially beneficial,” the report said.
The standard was put together by the ESG Social Housing Working Group, a collaboration of 18 banks and investors, housing associations, service providers and impact investing organisations set up in 2019 to address the lack of transparency and consistency in ESG reporting.
Sophie Lawrence, senior ethical, sustainable and impact researcher at Rathbone Greenbank Investments told ESG Clarity: “We are very supportive of The Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing, having provided in depth comments to The Good Economy’s white paper and committed to becoming an early adopter of the standard. The standard will be a key driver of improved disclosure in the sector.
“This is essential in enabling comparison of social housing providers across the sector through a comprehensive and transparent assessment of their management of social and environmental issues.”
Carol Storey, sustainable investment analyst at Schroders, said sustainability considerations are central to Schroders’ investment decision making so as an early adopter of the Sustainability Reporting Standard the firm sees tangible benefits in raising the quality of reporting.
“The new standard will help investors like Schroders to assess the ESG performance of social housing providers, and identify opportunities for us to work together with the sector to drive positive social and environmental change,” she said.
“This is a great example of a sector coming together with lenders and investors to address the lack of transparency, consistency and comparability in ESG reporting.”
Shuen Chan, head of ESG at LGIM Real Assets, said: “The UK affordable housing sector faces ever greater challenges. We are delighted to contribute to the development of The Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing as we believe it will play a pivotal role by providing a clear and consistent voluntary ESG disclosure framework that will help unlock investor capital to deliver more affordable and more sustainable homes for our communities.”
