We have been named the winner of the Sustainability category at the Exeter Property Awards after being recognised for the steps we are taking to become a more sustainable organisation.
Judges were impressed with our ‘Creating Greener Futures Together’ campaign which focuses on retrofitting 8,000 fuel poor-homes before 2028.
As the largest housing provider in the region, sustainability is important to LiveWest and we recognise our business activities impact the environment.
‘Creating Greener Futures Together’ brings all aspects of our business, customers, partners, and stakeholders to deliver better environmental outcomes for everyone.
Judges described ‘Creating Greener Futures Together’ as ‘impressively ambitious’, describing LiveWest as ‘strong strategic thinkers’.
Our Planning Technical and Sustainability Director, Glynnis Poole, said: “We are delighted to have won the Sustainability category at the Exeter Property Awards.
“The recognition demonstrates the excellent work our teams have been doing to support our ongoing commitment to reduce our environmental impact as a large business in the South West.
“Sustainable homes, neighbourhoods and communities are at the heart of our commitment to deliver a home for everyone.
“Our principal focus is around increasing the energy efficiency of our homes, reducing our carbon footprint and improving our customers’ lives.
“We are working hard to ensure our homes, our activities and our workplaces are as environmentally friendly as possible.”
As part of our investment of £45 million, we have identified a programme to bring all our homes up to EPC C by 2028, two years ahead of the government’s target of 2030. This underlines our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint, making our homes more affordable to live in, whilst improving their energy performance.
LiveWest has also committed to delivering all new homes within our control to Net Zero ready specification with low-carbon heating. Over the course of last year's delivery programme, 99% of our 951 new affordable homes achieved a minimum Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) B with 13 homes delivered to EPC A.
We launched a pilot of electric vans into our internal maintenance fleet to understand how our business will need to adapt to using a decarbonised fleet in the future. To support the pilot, we have installed EV chargers in our colleagues’ homes and at our two depot sites.
LiveWest is an early adopter of the Sustainability Reporting Standard (SRS) for Social Housing covering 48 criteria across ESG considerations such as zero carbon targets, affordability and safety standards and reporting on an annual basis.
In October 2022, we published our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions in our second SRS report as well as publishing our business roadmap to Net Zero.
We have been subscribed to the Sustainable Homes Index for Tomorrow (SHIFT), which provides an independent assessment of our environmental performance and have achieved Gold status this year in recognition of our work to reduce our impact on the environment.
Driving social value out of activities is key to creating long-term sustainable communities where people want to live, where there are opportunities to thrive and become resilient to increasing local and global challenges. Over 31% of our social value projects reflected food poverty and food security, with 27% of projects supporting community engagement work on the environment.
LiveWest has three high-performing offices. Our Tolvaddon office in Cornwall was designed to BREEAM Excellent principles and is operated using Air Source Heat Pumps and photovoltaic (PV) panels. Our head office in Exeter is on the Cranbrook District Heating network and is designed to BREEAM Excellent principles. Our Weston Gateway office in Worle has the benefit of PV panels and is located near to the train station to promote sustainable transport for colleagues.
All three offices have electric vehicle charging facilities and operate a ‘zero waste to landfill’ policy. Our Tolvaddon and Weston-Super-Mare offices have PV panels which last year generated 15,958kWh of sustainable electricity.
We have invested in ensuring our customers are supported with the new technologies that will be installed in new homes and as part of our new build and retrofit programmes.
We have a dedicated Energy Officer to support our customers with energy advice and have invested in a Renewables Technology team to install and advise on new technology within their homes.