Anchor Environmental Sustainability & Net Zero Carbon Strategy 2023 – 2026
Biodiversity & green spaces Sustainability also requires a commitment to increasing biodiversity and using and improving green spaces. Standards will be developed for our management of green space and biodiversity as custodians of locations. Enhancing biodiversity across our locations will support climate resilience, enhance the attractiveness of our locations and support resident wellbeing. In addition, there will be opportunities to enhance the wellbeing offer through supporting residents’ connection to nature, overlapping with the work described below on living well. The overarching goal will be to make green spaces more accessible and biodiverse. Amendments to the Town and Country Planning Act and planning policy will shortly require new developments and significant regeneration projects to provide a biodiversity net gain of at least 10%. Anchor’s 2019 SHIFT recommendations are that a biodiversity value of 17% of protected land should be applied. The next steps will be to gather comprehensive data on existing green spaces to provide a baseline from which to improve their biodiversity. A green spaces audit will be carried out and we will consider how best to incorporate this data into Anchor’s asset systems. Resident campaigns and initiatives will seek to encourage residents to access and care for green spaces, starting with our ‘going green’ theme for communications in summer 2023. The 2019 SHIFT analysis provided some understanding of the issues we need to consider and potential targets in mitigating climate change. The 2023 SHIFT analysis will build on this understanding and, together with our first Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) assessment, scheduled for Q4 2023-24, will start to build a full picture of the impact on our homes, residents and operations, and the measures and governing approaches needed for the environmental mitigation of climate change impacts, such as flooding and overheating.
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