Our Environmental, Social and Governance report 2025 shows strong progress in improving energy efficiency of customers’ homes
22 October 2025
We’ve published our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report for 2025.
ESG report 2025
This represents nearly a 12% increase on 2023/24, showing our commitment to delivering high-quality and sustainable homes for our customers.
We are publishing our fifth consecutive ESG report after being early adopters in 2021. The report sets out the Group’s commitment to sustainability and highlights the progress being made to improve customers’ homes and communities.
Tracey Barnes, Chief Financial Officer, said: “Sustainability is a vital part of our vision to provide homes people love to live in. Building energy efficient homes helps to deliver value for money to our customers by reducing energy consumption, and sustainable practises across the business help to meet our long-term environmental targets.
“We have more work still to do, but I’m pleased that this year we have seen progress in many areas against a challenging economic and regulatory backdrop.”
We completed 925 new homes in 2024/25, including 536 (58%) affordable homes, as we continue to deliver on our core objectives as a housing association.
Positive strides have been made to improve the energy efficiency across our entire portfolio of more than 38,000 homes. More than 80% of all our customers’ homes are rated EPC C and above, which is a marked improvement from just five years ago when this figure was only 51%.
In the past year, we also launched our first Climate Resilience Strategy, with a focus on the decarbonisation of existing homes and reduction in overall energy demand to achieve net zero by 2050. Progress has been made to reduce emissions by 12% compared to 2023/24.
We supported hundreds of customers with their energy bills in the last year, issuing £5,328 worth of vouchers via our in-house cost of living fund. Tenancy Sustainment colleagues also secured access to charitable funding, issuing 366 energy vouchers worth £17,934.
Nearly 80% of all our homes are classed as affordable and social housing, with rents continuing to be competitive in most areas compared to the Local Housing Allowance. On average, our customers spend 51% of their Local Housing Allowance on rent, which is a 3% decrease on 2023/24.
Our dedicated teams continue to help customers maximise their income, supporting 2,396 customers to claim more than £11 million of financial support in 2024/25. This includes helping them access benefits, cost-of-living initiatives, and support via employment advisers and wellbeing services.
Going forward we remain committed to delivering on our environmental obligations and building on our Climate Resilience Strategy. We have outlined plans to ensure all homes are rated EPC C or above by 2030, and allocated £14 million to achieve this, including a £1.5 million investment in thermal improvement works in 2025/26.
Highlights from our ESG report 2025 include:
- 100% of new homes achieving an EPC C rating or above, with 95% rated B or above
- 100% building waste diverted from landfill
- First-ever Climate Resilience Strategy launched
- 58% of new homes built are affordable
- £8.2 million generated in social value by our community investment team
- 2,396 customers helped to receive cost of living support worth more than £11 million
- 1,723 damp and mould surveys completed
- Fire risk assessments completed for every building 18 metres tall and over
- First resident appointed to our Group Board
- 50% women on senior role shortlists.
