Sponsored walk raises funds to end homelessness

The Executive Teams of Independent East took part in a sponsored charity walk from Dunwich to Walberswick in Suffolk last week. They were walking to support Homeful, the social housing campaign to end homelessness. There is still time to contribute to the campaign.

Independent East housing association executives on sponsored walk of east coast, May 2022 — Broadland Housing executives Louise Archer (1st left), Andrew Savage (4th left), Michael Newey (centre), Catherine Little (3rd right)

Michael Newey, Chief Executive, said:

The walk is for a brilliant cause and we’re really pleased to support CIH President Jo Richardson’s campaign to help end homelessness. Although we work separately as Independent East colleagues, we share a similar vision and values. We want a fairer society and an end to youth homelessness, and so this cause is close to our hearts.

Independent East is an informal alliance of five community‐focused housing associations in the East of England. The group’s purpose is to share ideas and best practice to continually improve services and better the lives of their tenants.

Broadland Housing has received a Sustainable Housing Label from international consultants Ritterwald. We are the first medium-sized housing association to receive the award, which recognises our strong ESG (environmental, social and governance) performance.

The Sustainable Housing Label looks at more than 40 ESG criteria that are aligned to the Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing, and scrutinises sustainability across the operations of an organisation.

Broadland scored highly on tenant engagement, “ethical” considerations, and “high-quality sustainable housing, staff and tenant wellbeing and tenant representation”.

Broadland Housing Association Chief Executive Michael Newey receiving the SUstainable Housing Label award from Austen Reid of Ritterwald — Michael Newey, Chief Executive (right) receiving the award from Austen Reid, UK Director, Ritterwald

Ritterwald Sustainable Housing Label, achieved by Broadland Housing Group in December 2021 — Michael Newey, Chief Executive (right) receiving the award from Austen Reid, UK Director, Ritterwald

High score for tenant engagement

Iain Grieve, Executive Finance Director, said:

There were some really positive things from the label application process around how we engage with our tenants, and around the communities and the surroundings of our development schemes, how we obtain feedback from our staff, and how we focus on staff wellbeing.
There’s a lot of focus on the environmental side and net zero decarbonisation, but actually it’s the wider view of ESG and sustainability that funders are interested in.

Ritterwald said that Broadland can “lead the way for other medium-sized social landlords looking to obtain an externally verified ESG accreditation”:

…A sustainability strategy has to have a strong element of engagement with residents, and Broadland was able to demonstrate it.
Austen Reid, UK director, Ritterwald

Benefits for the whole housing sector

Iain said the Sustainable Housing Label has knock-on effects for the whole sector if more housing associations apply:

There’s no need to be intimidated by something like an ESG accreditation, despite the fact that most of the holders are larger housing associations with more resources.
What we found is that, going through the process, it looks at our operation and the things we would do on a day-to-day basis anyway. It’s allowed us to benchmark our performance against other housing associations, which has been another benefit.
Ultimately, we’re all trying to achieve the same thing. It’s a really good thing to do, I think, to help us move forward together as a sector.

Read the full article in Social Housing magazine