Sustainability
Keeping an eye on our environment
In the last few years we’ve had some excellent results for our sustainability projects, and in 2022-23, we wanted to build on this success.
Here’s a few of our sustainability highlights:
GOLD
We maintained our SHIFT gold score and we improved our average energy efficiency scores for our homes. The number of fly-tipping incidents has reduced and we have actively engaged with more customers on carbon reduction.
This is helping us to reduce our customers gas and electricity bills and make sure that we’re doing everything we can to reduce our impact on the environment, such as sending less waste to landfill sites, for example.
of our homes are at EPC band C or above
This is part of our ambitious programme to make sure that all of our homes are at band C or above by 2030.
trees planted
For every new home we build, we donate £50 to the Community Forest Trust so that they can plant trees to offset some of the timber we use. We built 938 new homes in 2022-23, which means that nearly 6,000 trees were planted last year. The scheme has been running since 2019, and so far we’ve planted almost 23,000 trees.
homes retrofitted
To make sure that our customers can get the best value for money on their energy bills, we have undertaken an ambitious retrofit programme aimed at improving the energy efficiency of our homes.
We’ve secured £9m worth of funding to support our retrofit programme. The money will go towards improving the energy efficiency of homes across eight key locations, helping to reduce bills and carbon footprints for our customers living there.
This year we expanded our sustainability team to seven, helping us to deliver more important projects that benefit our customers and make sure that our environmental focus remains strong.
Greenoak partnership
In January 2023 we welcomed Greenoak Housing Association into the Stonewater family.
Greenoak, which looks after around 550 homes in Surrey and Sussex, was founded in 1985, and has been a strong voice for tackling environmental issues and supporting communities to grow and thrive– something which was key in forming the partnership with Stonewater.
Nicholas Harris, Chief Executive at Stonewater, said: “Greenoak quickly built up a reputation for its strong commitment to environmental sustainability, an ethos it shares with Stonewater. I believe Greenoak will continue to flourish within the Stonewater Group.”
Some of the initiatives that Stonewater and Greenoak will be working on include
- Working on projects which will pioneer new approaches for reducing our impact on the environment and make our homes more energy efficient.
- Working to find and promote apprenticeship and training opportunities to bridge the skills gap and create jobs and careers in our communities.