This will be challenging, to say the least. Britain has some of the oldest, most inefficient housing stock in the developed world. And building the millions of new homes needed to tackle the housing crisis will only add to the sector’s carbon footprint.

The good news is that domestic emissions have actually been falling consistently over the last two decades, thanks to improved insulation, grid decarbonisation and warmer weather. Technologies like air source heat pumps and rooftop solar may not have had the hoped-for impact yet, but they can still play an important role in reducing emissions – as can new AI-powered developments in renewables and grid efficiency. Using these technologies to retrofit the UK’s leaky old homes would make a huge difference.

Equally, new homes are much more efficient operationally – and thanks to AI tools that also make building design and construction more efficient, coupled with advances in materials technology, we should see the embodied carbon associated with new-builds fall over time.

Critically, this is not just an environmental issue. Making our homes more energy-efficient also makes them cheaper to run, future-proofed against new regulation and better protected against climate change-related risks. That makes them more attractive to future buyers. So lower-carbon housing is not just an ecological (or even social) imperative: it’s an opportunity to create long-term economic value.

But the sheer scale and shape of the challenge can sometimes be hard to grasp. This is largely because a superficially simple problem – having enough quality homes for everyone to live in – has now morphed into a complex range of interlinked problems, which affect different people in different ways at different times.

In this paper, we try to provide a brief snapshot of the extent of UK’s housing challenge, with the help of 15 charts, covering:

• The gap between housing supply and demand

• The impact this has had on affordability and accessibility 

• Why this is a quality problem, not just a quantity problem

• Some of the key barriers to housebuilding

Our co-CEOs (and co-founders) were this year’s selection for the private equity ‘Hall of Fame’ – in recognition of the work they (and Bridges more broadly) have done in building the market for sustainable and impact-driven investing.

Bridges was an idea born out of the private equity industry, and some of the UK’s leading firms played an instrumental supporting role in our early years.
In return, Bridges has always tried to support the growth of this segment, both by sharing what we’ve learned along the way for the benefit of others, and by playing an active role in groups like the BVCA, PRI and B Corp UK.

In recent years, we have also hosted and facilitated the Impact Management Project, an initiative designed to help all investors agree standard norms and frameworks for measuring and reporting on their impact.

So Michele and Phil (on behalf of the whole team) are hugely grateful to receive this recognition from their peers. Many thanks to Real Deals and all those who supported the nomination!

This year’s Private Equity Awards, brought by Real Deals Media and hosted by Scottish impressionist and comedian Rory Bremner, saw an impressive 38 awards handed out to various deserving firms and professionals from across the industry.

Bridges was also shortlisted in the GP category for ESG – recognising our continued commitment to best practice in environmental, social and corporate governance.

Launched in June 2020, the ICS aggregates information about sustainability-related disclosures of investments and brings them into a consistent digital reporting format. Following the successful roll-out to over 300 practitioners, the platform will now expand its reach through connection with the GIIN’s IRIS+ system.

“Integrating the ICS into the GIIN’s suite of offerings will simplify life for investment practitioners seeking access to tools and resources, helping them to understand and describe the impact of their investments.” says Claudia Coppenolle, CEO and Co-Founder of the Impact Classification System. “We are certain that the network and reach of the GIIN will drive adoption significantly. Over time, this will allow for better transparency and comparability of impact data and reporting for impact investors.”

Laurie Spengler, non-executive director of Bridges Insights, comments: “By partnering with Claudia and the IMP+ACT Alliance, Bridges Insights was able to support the development of an innovative technology solution that will further enable the growth of the impact investing market. Thanks to the team’s entrepreneurial leadership and solutions-driven approach, the ICS has become a go-to resource for asset managers and asset owners looking to understand and track the impact of their capital. We are delighted to agree this partnership with the GIIN, to create a permanent home for the ICS, which will allow it to play a key role in the harmonisation of impact management across the investment world.”

The Impact Classification System will remain freely available and interested parties can register for access through the GIIN website here. 

About the IMP+ACT Alliance

The IMP+ACT Alliance is a time-bound technology initiative for the public good. Together with over 150 organisations, the IMP+ACT Alliance has developed the IMP+ACT Classification System. This digital platform aims to provide asset owners with comparable information that helps them to understand and label the impact occurring in their multi-asset portfolios.

The IMP+ACT Alliance was sponsored by the City of London Corporation and Deutsche Bank and supported through Bridges Insights, Bridges’ field-building arm, as well a network of strategic partners and impact investing networks.

Bridges hopes that the paper can help to break down some of the barriers preventing the SIB market from achieving greater scale.

Some of the key points in the paper include:

• SIBs/ outcomes contracts should be seen as a tool to drive greater efficiency in existing services, not just to de-risk innovative new ones
• There are a few policy areas in particular where the early SIBs have already delivered improved outcomes – including youth employment, children’s services, homelessness and health & social care
• There is a substantial portion of current Government spending where there is almost no outcomes-based contracting; it makes sense to at least try outcomes-based approaches in some of these areas
• Outcomes contracts will ultimately have to offer better value than any available alternative, or there is no reason to think they will succeed at scale

Andrew Levitt, Head of Social Impact Bonds at Bridges Ventures, said:

“Our experience to date suggests that introducing more outcomes-based payment mechanisms within specific policy areas could help commissioners improve service delivery and get a better understanding of which approaches work best. Over time, this should help governments achieve better value for public money and, crucially, better outcomes for some of the most vulnerable people in society.”

 View the report here.   (screen view)    (print view)