Sustainability

As a leading provider of affordable homes and extensive support services, we have  a clear opportunity and responsibility to deliver energy efficiency and environmental improvements in our homes, communities, and the way we work. As we move towards becoming a more environmentally responsible organisation for the benefit of customers and the planet, we’ve a number of aims that underpin our overarching sustainability strategy. These aims are focused on reducing our carbon emissions, improving the natural environment as well as the quality and efficiency of our homes.  

Aims underpinning our overarching sustainability strategy:

• Warm, healthy, net zero emission homes - We believe that everyone deserves a home that’s affordable, comfortable and in good working order. A home should be comfortable throughout the year and needs to be resilient to both cold weather and heat waves. This will help our customers to stay healthy, to reduce energy costs and to reduce the risk of condensation and mould in their homes. It will also help VIVID to reduce its environmental impact. We’re committed to improving and investing in our homes so that all of them will meet energy performance certificate (EPC) band C by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. We’re also improving the way we manage our heat networks and other energy infrastructure where we’re the energy provider, in a further effort to reduce customers’ energy bills and carbon emissions. Our commitment to doing all we can to deliver and then manage and maintain energy efficient high-quality homes is vital to the futures of both our customers and the planet. 

• Creating attractive places for people and nature  - We know that nature and green spaces have an important role to play in our health and wellbeing and in order to have a healthy future planet, its vital that biodiversity is supported and improved.  As a result, we are focusing on where we can deliver improvements, whether that’s  planting trees and wildflower meadows, or carrying out more significant work from preserving existing ecological habitats to creating brand new green spaces.  

• Adapting the way we work - We’re working towards reducing our emissions as an organisation. We’re committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 from our homes as well as those resulting from our activities and operations, such as  our travel and transport and our offices. We’re also working towards reducing the carbon impact of the goods and services we buy.  

• Use less, buy better - As part of our efforts to reduce our environmental impact, we’re also looking at how we can buy less of everything that we need, and buy better, choosing products made of less environmentally impacting materials, that last longer and are easily recycled or reused. We also want to work with suppliers that share our sustainability goals and who are also making efforts to do better when it comes to their products and operations.