Housing Associations’ impact is significant, and investor interest in the UK social housing sector is strong and growing. Increasing investor interest underlines the need for the UK social housing sector to clearly highlight and report on its strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance.
Last year, in response to increasing interest and demand, Centrus, with one of our housing association (HA) clients Peabody, initiated a project involving other leading HAs, investors and market participants to help establish a credible, meaningful and comparable set of ESG criteria that housing associations can use to demonstrate their impact to investors. We hope that the approach will be of interest to associations, lenders, investors, regulatory bodies and government.
Following a series of workshops and with insight gathered from lenders and investors over many months, we present a draft White Paper and propose sector-standard ESG criteria and metrics for discussion and consultation.
The proposed 10 themes and 42 criteria are open for consultation at www.ESGsocialhousing.co.uk from Wednesday 6 May 2020.
A series of webinars are planned in June and you can register your interest and submit feedback on the website.
The ultimate aim is to increase private capital flows into the sector to complement public investment for the benefit of residents and communities. The leadership provided by Centrus on this project underlines our commitment as a business to sustainable, modern finance and the positive role that this can play in underpinning long-term investment to communities and broader society. As the leading corporate finance advisor to the UK social housing sector, we continue to work with our clients to provide innovative solutions and thought leadership in a fast-evolving environment.