Our Sustainability Roadmap compliments our approaches to operational performance and partnership working, ensuring we’ve got a clear eye from now to the future on sustainability in a rapidly changing environmental, social and economic context.
The themes within the Sustainability Roadmap are based on the issues that matter most to our stakeholders. These were determined via a thorough consultation process that involved 38 interviews, desktop research, competitor analysis and Executive workshops.
It consists of three pillars: People, Living and Building. Each of these areas has short, medium and long term targets against which we track our performance.
Empowering people from all walks of life with opportunities to gain quality work and skills, shaping the communities in which they live.
Engaging and empowering communities
People have a special connection to where they live, and changing the built environment around them is a great responsibility. When done right, the outcomes for local people can be inspiring. And to make sure of it we engage communities to understand the outcomes they want to see, and how successful we were in achieving those outcomes so we can continually improve.
A business where people want to work and grow
Direct employees and those working for our trades want to work in an environment that values, respects and celebrates difference. This, plus our strong social mission ultimately leads to a healthy culture, better decision making and greater access to the best talent. Our focus on exciting sustainable partnership developments sets us apart as an employer of choice and we will make this a key part of our employer value proposition.
New green skills, jobs and business opportunities
Housebuilding provides more than just homes. Our industry provides quality, skilled UK jobs directly and through the supply chain. The breadth and variety of the types of roles is often understated. The revolution in sustainable homebuilding offers new and exciting green skills opportunities for both future and existing employees to support a just transition. By building these skills we can enhance prospects for the communities in which we build while ensuring we are contributing to developing the future workforce the industry needs.
Providing quality homes and places within reach that respect the environment and leave a positive legacy for decades.
Homes within reach
The average UK house price is £294,000 (UK HPI, Dec 22), however the average sales price of a new build home in England is £425,000. This excludes many people from the buying market who must rent from the private sector at high cost, making it harder still to save for a deposit. High fuel bills in older, less efficient homes can exacerbate this. Through our partnership model and land buying choices, Keepmoat makes new high quality and efficient homes accessible to greater numbers of people through low selling prices and mortgage accessibility without compromising on the customer experience.
Great customer journey
The arrival of the New Homes Quality Code (NHQC) sets clear expectations for what customers may expect from their service, from marketing and sales through to aftercare. These expectations are now backed up by a New Homes Ombudsman if customer complaints are not resolved in a satisfactory way. Keepmoat is committed to the new Code, and to ensuring we delight enough customers to receive a 5 Star rating from the HBF year on year. The challenge is to ensure we continue to this as housing undergoes it’s most significant changes in decades in particular due to the Future Homes Standard.
Green and healthy places of the future
A well planned and designed place has been created with the future in mind - enabling residents to travel to work, leisure and amenities by green and active healthy forms of travel. It has been designed to consider changes to weather patterns that will experienced in later years and to ensure nature and wildlife has a place alongside people.
Homes for sustainable living
We have a significant part to play in achieving a net zero Britain by 2050, by creating homes which enable ultra low carbon lifestyles. This will be done in such a way that homes remain affordable to buy and run, and that are comfortable and easy to use for customers. Our homes will be designed to reduce pressure on water and other natural resources and to reflect changing lifestyles and demographics.
Continually improving site management and building practices that protect our people as well as the environment.
Safe and robust site management
We will further great site management where raw material use is minimised, and waste is reduced as far as possible. Our construction environments will be healthy and safe, minimising disruption to residents and mitigating the risk of pollution incidents that may grow due to climate change.
Towards zero carbon construction
In the building of a home, diesel - a fossil fuel - has the most significant impact on our direct carbon emissions and we will find ways to reduce, then eliminate it from our operations. But the greatest known carbon impacts of building are in our indirect operations - through groundworks services we buy, and manufacturing of materials that we use. We pledge to drive down these indirect emissions and explore different materials or ways to build with lower embodied emissions.
Innovative design, materials and construction
Over the past few decades digital technologies and new manufacturing methods have had enormous impacts on the way business is done and how things are made often with productivity, service and environmental advantages. Four out of the top five largest businesses in the world* are in tech. We commit to continually exploring how different methods of building and designing can support our business and sustainability priorities.
Sustainable Development Goals
This goal is about providing access to clean, renewable and affordable energy and improving eneger effciency.
Keepmoat will contribute by building all-electric homes with high levels of energy effciency at prices within reach.
Goal 8 is not only about providing good quality work, but providing opportunities for all through the right kind of economic growth.
Keepmoat will contribute by spending with local businesses, providing opportunities for disadvantaged groups and working towards decoupling growth from environmental harm.
Goal 11 is potentially where Keepmoat can make the greatest contribution of all. It is about the way we design and build the places of the future where people will live and thrive, and making the process of doing so, participatory.
We will build quality homes in great places, taking communities along with us on that journey.
Goal 12 is about respectful use of largely finite raw materials through limiting their use, reducing waste and doing more in terms of re-use and recycling.
Construction is resource-heavy and is (with excavation and demolition) responsible for over 60% of all UK waste*. We can play a meaningful role in reducing that proportion.
The Climate Action Goal (13) relates to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
It is also about ensuring that places are resilient to the climate change that is set to occur.
Keepmoat can play an important role in both of these aspects from the way we build, to the places we design.
The world is experiencing a loss of biodiversity due to land use change, deforestation and agricultural methods.
Through sensitive design and building practices and through careful sourcing choices we can limit harmful impacts on nature and even create new spaces which allow nature to thrive.
