SHIFT sees major changes on the back of significant growth
Posted by Andrew Eagles on Tue, Jan 17, 2012
Well the title of this story could perhaps be ch-ch-ch-changes. Apologies for the David Bowie reference in the subject line, thought an update might be of use.
SHIFT is growing and changing. The last year saw two national awards, events opened by the Chief Scientific Adviser to Communities and Local Government, visits to leading environmental projects and an increase of over 20% in the number of organisations involved.
That was a busy year! We are also further improving our service. SHIFT has been modified to even better meet your needs:
- new assessment software will provide you with specific comparison of performance for each sustainability issue
- new weightings for the assessment service to align with your feedback for those issues such as existing homes, which are more important
- more events- these are focused specifically on what registered providers wanted to focus on
- more members and more corporate partners to learn from
2012 is the year of the major public assessment year. All results will be publicised in all industry magazines and websites. Illustrate how far you have improved. Compare yourself with your peers who are enjoying the benefits. Join here.
SHIFT is helping organisations change and improve. Members have told us that SHIFT has helped them:
- a SHIFT member, a local authority, was able to use SHIFT to demonstrate sustainability and was subsequently contracted to build police accommodations;
- start a wholesale campaign to reduce their environmental impacts
- save money on fuel and water bills;
- reporting improvements in performance to their Board and to their staff
Other Feeback includes:
“SHIFT has given us a tried and tested tool for measuring and managing our environmental performance. It provides us with a framework for testing our Sustainability Strategy against and is also useful for communicating how we’re performing to staff, residents and partners. As a SHIFT member we also have access to some great events and resources and are kept up to date on all the latest national issues. Andrew Piper, Sustainability Manager, Amicus Horizon
“Longhurst Housing Group joined SHIFT to get an independent assessment of where we were on the full range of green issues. We gained not only a Bronze assessment, but also received many useful and practical ideas on how to improve, and since then have been pushing forward. The methodology and the events have been really useful for us, and I would highly recommend joining SHIFT to others.” Leonie Cooper, Sustainability Manager, Longhurst Group
Most organisations are taking up the early bird saving by joining by end January 2012. You can do that by entering Earlybird into the online form here. We look forward to welcoming you to the group.
The Homes and Communities Agency are also interested to see greater uptake. They state, "SHIFT is a comprehensive tool for registered housing providers to measure and reduce their environmental impact. The Homes and Communities Agency is interested to see more providers join the SHIFT best practice group" Kevin G McGeough, RIBA, FRSA, Senior Strategy Manager (Sustainable Places), Homes and Communities Agency.
