Deliver on sustainability by putting people at the centre of your journey

Rob Gilham and Jo Shields share insight into whg’s people-centred approach to sustainability, which has earned them recognition from acclaimed consultancy RITTERWALD.

Housing has a huge social and environmental impact. Research shows that England’s homes produce 58.5m tonnes of CO2 every year, more than all the country’s cars. It’s therefore imperative that we all play our part in embracing a sustainable approach to the way we operate. 

At whg, we believe that the right thing for the planet is the right thing for our customers and neighbourhoods. Appreciating our fundamental social purpose, we are currently striving to embed sustainability as a core guiding principle for everything we do. 

As well as protecting the environment, for us, this means providing long-lasting homes and supportive services, which enable individuals to flourish and communities to thrive. 

This overarching commitment has led to the launch of our first sustainability strategy, setting out how we will work towards achieving these aspirations – from decarbonising homes to encouraging biodiversity, from promoting a circular economy to incorporating sustainability considerations into our procurement processes. 

People first

To integrate sustainability across our organisation, we understand the need to embed this commitment within our people. Having spoken to customers to gather their views on what was important to include, we then involved as many colleagues as possible at all levels to develop the strategy. 

For it to become reality, our colleagues need to understand it, have a sense of ownership, and feel empowered to deliver it. We spent a lot of time understanding what was important, what makes us the business we are, and how we could align our sustainability objectives with our core values and mission. 

All of this has resulted in a strategy that reflects whg’s unique identity. This, in turn, will make it more achievable because our colleagues and customers can find it easy to relate to. 

Alongside this work, we have been running our own accredited business-wide carbon literacy training. This is designed to educate and inspire colleagues on how they can integrate change in their day-to-day lives – both at work and at home – to support decarbonisation and create a more sustainable way of operating. 

Leading by example 

Consultation and communication with senior colleagues were also critical to the development of our strategy. And we are fortunate to have leaders who are 100 per cent committed to doing the right thing. The majority of our senior leaders and three of our board members, who champion sustainability, have completed our specialist training to become accredited as carbon literate. 

In leading by example in this way, they are better positioned to support colleagues, and it enables each of them to deliver on the strategy’s objectives in their own area of responsibility. 

Governance is crucial to the success of our sustainability ambitions, so we have also set up a dedicated ESG (environmental, social and governance) group to oversee progress. 

Going the extra mile 

Part of the preparations for developing an impactful strategy was our work towards gaining the RITTERWALD Certified Sustainable Housing Label, which we achieved in July 2023 following a rigorous assessment process. 

Gaining this internationally recognised accreditation was important to us as it provides external validation and assurance that we are doing all we can to operate in a sustainable, ethical, and socially responsible way right across our organisation. 

We were delighted that assessors gave us ‘frontrunner’ ranking for our social impact and ‘ambassador’ ranking both for our environmental and governance credentials, concluding our ‘excellent’ score demonstrated a deep commitment to sustainability.

Governance is crucial to the success of our sustainability ambitions, so we have set up a dedicated ESG group to oversee progress

They specifically praised our carbon literacy training programme, which was particularly pleasing as we feel it validates our ‘people first’ approach to ensuring these principles become part of the fabric of whg. 

Such recognition by RITTERWALD gives assurance to our investors and other partners that we are an ethical business determined to deliver on our promises. The accreditation has also generated a sense of pride within our teams, strengthening the feeling that we are all pulling together on our combined journey towards a sustainable future. 

We also became the first housing association to pilot the new Convene ESG software, a data system that makes it easier and quicker to process information and report on performance against ESG standards.

whg was awarded its RITTERWALD certification in July this year

Strong foundations 

We have crafted our new sustainability strategy as a framework to support our corporate plan and build on the good work we have already done to reduce our carbon footprint and future-proof our homes and communities. 

There is still a great deal to do, but we feel we have cemented strong foundations, using a robust process to understand whg’s areas of influence and how we can truly make a difference. 

We recently produced our first annual sustainability performance report, which shows the impact we have made so far, including cutting our carbon emissions by 4,000 tonnes over the past two years. 

Our RITTERWALD accreditation was announced just as we were finalising this report, showing we mean business in our commitment to sustainability and spurring us on to achieve even more in the year ahead.

• Images courtesy of whg