An expert opinion on our progress
Camco has been working with Crest Nicholson for three years to help the company understand and manage the implications of climate change for its business.
Here Camco UK managing director Sonny Masero gives his assessment of Crest Nicholson's progress to date. There is now international scientific consensus that some form of climate change will happen, that we will see the effects sooner than expected and that we are heading for the worst case scenario if we do not act in the near future.
In these present difficult economic circumstances, particularly in the hard hit housebuilding sector, it is easy to put off investment in tackling climate change. We are pleased to see that Chief Executive Stephen Stone is adamant that Crest Nicholson will continue to address climate change issues during this downturn.
Five key areas requiring focus
Housebuilders should be acting in five areas:
- understanding and assessing the climate change risks and opportunities in their existing land bank and for sites they are acquiring;
- calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions embodied in supply chains so that procurement can be focused on low carbon materials and technologies;
- planning, designing and building homes and neighbourhoods that will be low carbon in use;
- supporting their customers in living sustainable low carbon lifestyles; and
- building partnerships to collaborate in the delivery of a low carbon society.
Overview of Crest's performance
Crest Nicholson has maintained investment in becoming a sustainable low carbon housebuilder. This market-leading early action on climate change was recognised in the 2008 Next Generation survey of the housebuilding sector and by the Building Sustainable Housebuilder of the Year Award 2008.
The measurement of key performance indicators in 2009 show that this time and effort is delivering results including a significant reduction in office energy consumption.
However, Crest can achieve more. For example, building on its work to date with its supply chain, Crest can do more to tackle the issue of the carbon embodied in materials as well as further promote the use of efficient technologies. Widening the coverage of its KPIs to promote sustainable procurement practices would support this approach.
Developing and selling low carbon homes
The slowdown in housebuilding provides Crest Nicholson with an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learnt from its innovations at One Brighton, Avante and Bath Western Riverside and apply the best climate change mitigation measures to the new sites which are moving forwards.
It needs to be easy for customers to make green lifestyle choices, such as providing parking spaces for the local car club as Crest did at the Bath Western Riverside site. Crest Nicholson also needs to build on the success of the One Brighton sales staff, who are particularly trained in raising customer awareness of the development's sustainability features.
Assessing climate change risks
Crest Nicholson has improved its internal risk management processes to include climate change risks. However, as yet there is no external reporting to show that these climate change risk criteria have been fully included in a decision-making process and we would welcome more transparency on this in the future.
This year provides the opportunity for Crest to better understand the adaptation implications for new homes they intend to build over the coming decade, particularly in the area of flood risk.
Building partnerships
Collaborative effort and co-operation is essential to address climate change. In particular, working towards a common approach for delivering Zero Carbon Homes would be a good step forward. We would like to see Crest Nicholson continue to take a lead here and to draw other housebuilders into the process so the whole industry can sign up to a shared agenda.
Summary
Crest has made an excellent start in acting to reduce the company's contribution to climate change, but there is still a long way to go to become a low carbon business so the continued leadership, team dedication and investment is critical for this strategy to be a success for all of Crest's stakeholders.
Sonny Masero
Managing Director, UK
Camco