The Community Housing Industry Association
National
Already a leader in unlocking social value, the Australian community housing sector is embracing the challenge of decarbonisation and driving better governance outcomes.
The launch of the ESG reporting standard for Australian community housing in 2023 paved the way for the sector to tell a fuller story of its value creation. The Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA), SGS Economics and Planning, RITTERWALD, and Paxon Group jointly developed the standard in consultation with community housing organisations (CHOs), lenders and investors.
Since then, 36 Adopters and Supporters from the housing, finance, sustainability, and other sectors have joined the community, signalling a more collaborative commitment to growing the safe and affordable housing pipeline for all Australians.
The key benefits of ESG reporting by CHOs are:
- To attract finance and to raise CHO competitiveness in gaining funding support
- Sector self-development and organisational enhancements
- To better articulate the sector’s contribution to broader society.
The first Annual Review highlighted that:
- CHOs’ strong social purpose is evidenced through the sector’s positive performance on five dimensions: affordable and secure homes, building safety and quality, listening and empowering the resident voice, providing resident support, and placemaking.
- CHOs provide the foundations for a life lived safely and with dignity, ensuring everyone can participate in things that matter most to them.
- Monitoring homes’ energy rating performance and calculating carbon emissions are two areas where ESG reporting should be improved in the future. Challenges to reporting included the availability of data and the portfolio mix of owned and managed properties.
- CHOs actively plan and implement energy efficiency upgrades to their portfolios. The most common actions include focusing on quality insulation, retrofits, and tenant education.
The tide is shifting following a year of landmark progress on national housing policy. The publication of this first Annual Review highlights the clear potential for a step change in financing more social and affordable housing.
Read the first Annual Review here.
Interested in this project?
Read more about the ESG reporting standard here.
