Feature
Putting money where our mouth is
john bruton Hot on the heels of securing a quarter-of-a-million-pound cash injection from Homes England, major housing association Stonewater has issued its debut £250m ESG-accredited sustainability bond in a bid to cut carbon and build thousands of homes. We speak to executive director of finance John Bruton about how the deal is set to shore up the company’s plans to deliver more than 6,000 homes by March 2024 and ensure all its new builds are net zero from 2025
How will the sustainability bond help Stonewater reduce net carbon emissions and provide more affordable housing? The bond will help deliver the aims outlined in our Sustainable Finance Framework (SFF), which we were among the first housing associations to publish earlier this year. We are committed to hitting the government’s target of net zero carbon by 2050 for all our properties. Stonewater owns and manages more than 34,000 homes across England and we’ve identified £322m of qualifying assets that comply with our framework; these are split almost 50% between social or affordable housing and green buildings. Approximately 27% of the portfolio is new assets that will be built in line with the aims in the SFF; while the remainder is existing, eligible properties that will be refinanced or upgraded. We’re also delighted to have recently been named by Homes England as one of its largest strategic partners. Working alongside Guinness, we’ve been jointly provided further funding of £250m to build 4,180
high quality, affordable homes by 2029. This is on top of the £224m awarded to the strategic partnership by the housing body in 2018 to build 4,500 homes by 2025. Stonewater will provide its share of these as part of the 6,000 homes we plan to deliver. As we are a charitable housing association, our environmental and sustainability strategy is mainly focused around developing new, green, affordable, energy-efficient homes with no overall impact on the environment, while improving our existing homes to ensure they meet our ambitious targets for the benefit of all our customers. The bond is at the heart of this. What will you be doing to improve the energy efficiency of new developments and ensure they are able to withstand extreme weather in the future? We’re modelling different approaches in order to develop preferred solutions for our new homes in meeting net zero carbon standards. As part of this, we are consulting with customers on what is important to them and assessing the environmental impact of 66
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