Nick Jones, director of property and operations at Retirement Villages Group, looks at the steps the later living sector needs to take towards becoming truly sustainable and the challenges that lie ahead.
Every couple of weeks or so, we hear another story about the death of businesses’ commitment to sustainability. It’s a neat narrative in the current global political environment, but I’m not sure how true it is.
My experience, at least, suggests that the commitment to sustainability from UK business is here to stay. But it’s true that the gap between good intentions and actually being able to deliver real change can be extremely difficult to bridge, even with everyone on board.
At RVG, we’ve made a commitment to be fully carbon net zero by 2030. We don’t underestimate the hill we’ve got to climb, and we’re prepared to put in the investment and time to do it. Not least for our residents, who, as older people, are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate.
We’re proud to be the first company in the retirement living sector to sign up to the UN’s ‘Race to Zero’ pledge, aiming to do our part in keeping global temperatures rising beyond 1.5C and halving carbon emissions by 2030. As the first step in our journey, we have pledged to meet an independently set carbon reduction goal, with ambitious targets accredited by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). But we know we won’t get there without real changes to how we operate.
Our path to net zero
For a start, all of our new Thrive Living integrated retirement villages are designed from the outset to be whole-of-life net zero carbon, which includes both operational and embodied carbon. Our first two Thrive villages opening in 2025 – The Wyldewoods in Chester and Botanical Place in Surrey – met this standard from day one. A key part of our carbon reduction strategy is building in more sustainable features from the start, with apartments designed to be at least 50% more energy-efficient than homes built today. Thrive developments also are not gas-powered, with solar panels installed to generate renewable electricity for the entire development.
Going forward, all developers will need to build more sustainable properties, for the sake of our environment but also to keep up with evolving industry standards and practices. But it’s also true that the entire housing sector can’t just start from scratch. Huge numbers of existing – often older – properties will need to be upgraded over the next few years to reduce their carbon output, which is no mean feat.
Part of this is a funding issue – businesses in our sector must find ways to fund carbon reduction efforts across their portfolios. Our solution has been to create a decarbonisation fund, financed by our internal carbon levy across all new developments and several operational villages. RVG has introduced an internal carbon levy model during the construction of new developments, which we invest in energy-efficient measures across our villages, as well as carbon offset projects.
We believe in our goals and think we’re in a strong position to reach them. But we recognise that we cannot continue to build in the way we have in the past, and at the same scale if we are to meet our net zero targets. We will need to innovate, with new technologies and evolving supply chains, to get there. This will involve working with the wider industry, suppliers, local planning authorities, and the government.
Sector cooperation
There is still too little cooperation in the later living and wider housing industry around sustainability, whether that’s sharing best practices or investing in new technologies. In addition to the type of operational and development improvements that are within our control as businesses, we are all reliant on wider industry supply chains improving their own approaches to reaching net zero in order to meet our own targets. We can’t make those changes by ourselves.
This requires the later living and wider housing and construction industry to work in partnership to incentivise suppliers to move to more sustainable approaches. We must all demand more of our supply chain partners and not accept halfway measures which do not prioritise more sustainable practices. This is particularly important for suppliers of building materials such as steel and concrete, which are a major part of our carbon output.
We all also have a responsibility to promote the importance of greater sustainability, and the long-term benefits to businesses, to our investors. Their support will ultimately be a major deciding factor in whether we can achieve our goals.
What do we need from the government?
As a sector, we should also use our voice to urge the government to remove blockers to sustainable development and create incentives for businesses to improve their sustainability approaches. The government – whether national or local – can’t meet its own net zero targets without the private sector, and vice versa.
For example, the incentives around energy use are completely backwards from a sustainability point of view – gas boilers are much cheaper to run than the more environmentally friendly air-source heat pumps and there is no support provided to make the transition. Developers currently face a financial penalty for switching to a more efficient energy source. We use air source heat pumps in all our new standalone home builds, and will continue doing so, but there’s no incentive for businesses to do so other than their responsibility to the planet. The government should work to change this status quo, as well as support or subsidise the development of new, more sustainable technologies across the board.
Onerous regulations around listed buildings, which prevent developers from upgrading older buildings to be more energy efficient, are also a major barrier to improving sustainability at pace. Improving housing insulation or installing double glazing may seem like a small step but it’s vital to improving energy efficiency and, therefore, reducing our carbon output. We need the national government to start a conversation about what a better balance between heritage and sustainability could look like, as well as a review of these regulations on a local level.
We’re committed to pushing the later living sector forward to become a healthy industry for the planet, but we need all the help we can get to do it.
