Piers Williamson, Chair of Sustainability for Housing (SfH), had the opportunity to speak on a panel at the 2025 Social Housing Leaders Conference. The panel, At the margins: Unlocking the value of impact finance, consisted of other industry experts, including:

• Imran Mubeen, Director at Newbridge Advisors
• Naomi Roper, Partner, banking and finance at Penningtons Manches Cooper
• Chinyelu Oranefo, Managing Director, Sustainability Advisory, Real Estate & Housing at Lloyds Bank
• Luke Cross, the Director at Social

Attendees had the chance to hear about the right mix of financial solutions to help providers create value for their organisations, how to ensure housing providers remain attractive, and maintain access to a range of bank and institutional financing options, as well as ways the sector benefits from linking finance and investment to social purpose.

Below are some takeaways from the session:

The value of the SRS

Piers emphasised that the Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing (SRS) and SfH, function as a referee in the sector. He remarked “We sit as an honest referee in the middle, between investors and housing associations. Our job is to tell it how it is across a broad range of criteria.”

He further explained that “hair trigger” compulsory covenants around sustainability are fundamentally misconceived and should not be accepted by Housing Associations. Whereas SfH offers a voluntary matrix of data points and narrative which will evolve based on feedback from both Housing Associations and lenders.

Despite concerns over the number of criteria within the SRS, pointed out by Imran (he would prefer a ‘golden dozen’ core criteria), Naomi mentioned the European Parliament’s rejection of simplifying sustainability reporting standards in Europe. She explained that the SRS is transparent and offers funders the clarity that they have been asking the sector for.

ESG as a business management tool

When questioned on why the sector is doing this [reporting ESG and sustainability], Piers acknowledged that this sentiment is often framed as something that is done to appeal to the banks and investors.

Although measuring this can make organisations attractive to investors, Piers also sees ESG as a valuable management tool to your entire business, across all aspects, from addressing an organisation’s gender pay gap to thinking about Awaab’s law. He said: “The housing organisations that do this the best are the ones that pull these criteria to the centre and use them strategically, they don’t just put them in a silo called sustainability.”

Chinyelu echoed this by highlighting that a stage of embedding is happening across the sector, with green finance globally still being very popular, despite recent anti-ESG political noise. However, the next stage is to use these mechanisms, like sustainability linked loans (SLLs)  to bring together various teams across organisations and embed sustainability into the way you do business.

A shift to data-centrism in the housing sector

Since its origins, the social housing sector has been mission-driven providing safe and secure affordable homes for those who need them the most. This goal has not changed however; Piers observed the move to a more data-centric approach.

At £130Bn, the social housing sector has borrowed nearly double the water sector. Due to stakeholders needs (increasingly in ESG) and more regulations, Piers highlighted the importance of having comparable year-on-year data and a framework, he commented: “It’s the case of finding a data and information framework fit for your purpose, as an organisation,  and fit to present to other different stakeholders.”

Regulators and stakeholders are looking at the sector in a much more detailed way than they ever have, and organisations cannot get away without using it. Piers reiterated this point in his closing remarks: “The effective use of data, whether it is looked through an ESG  (environment, social and governance) lens or any other lens, is here to stay for housing associations.”

The SRS has made data more comparable and easier for the sector. A comprehensive data set gets more valuable overtime, and as the sector evolves, it’s important for the SRS criteria to adapt too. That’s why, there will be further SRS consultations to ensure it meets the needs of all organisations.

Photo credit: Ocean Media Group