Our approach to sustainability

Designing and delivering sustainable places

In support of Sustainable Development Goal 11 to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

Sustainable places

We seek to create places that are resilient to climate change and are committed to making sure that there is more nature on every site when Berkeley has finished than when we began.

Creating communities

We plan for and measure the strength of communities using a toolkit, Creating Successful Places, and have community plans now in place on 12 of our developments.

Sustainable living

We incorporate a range of features that make it easy for residents to live a sustainable lifestyle, from water and energy efficiency fittings and fixtures to cycle storage and electric car charging points.

Using resources responsibly

In support of Sustainable Development Goal 12 to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Responsible operations

We are working to reduce energy, water and paper consumption and waste production. We require all our timber to be certified and for all sites to be registered with the Considerate Constructors Scheme.

Responsible supply chain

We encourage our contractors to use resources responsibly too and were the first housebuilder to become a partner of the Supply Chain Sustainability School's 'Homes' School.

Encouraging residents

By providing homes with smart meters and sustainable Living Guides for customers, we encourage our residents to use resources responsibly.

Designing for climate change

In support of Sustainable Development Goal 13 to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Adapting to climate change

We incorporate features to address the risks most relevant to the design of our developments: flooding, water shortage and ensuring thermal comfort.

Mitigating climate change

As well as working to make our business operations carbon positive, all our homes are provided with low energy and water use fittings and fixtures.

Protecting and enhancing ecology and biodiversity

In support of Sustainable Development Goal 15 to sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss.

Creating a net biodiversity gain

We aim for all our new developments to have more nature afterwards than before.

Protecting and enhancing ecology

We consult ecologists on every site, bring brownfield land back to life and incorporate living roofs on all suitable apartment roof spaces.

Sourcing sustainable timber

We are committed to only using timber from sustainably managed forests.

Promoting health and wellbeing

In support of Sustainable Development Goal 3 to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.

Healthy workplaces

We seek to improve the quality of life of our employees and improve employee satisfaction and productivity.

Safe workplaces

We also want to ensure our workplaces are safe and target an incident and injury free working environment.

Healthy homes

To enable our residents to lead healthy and happy lives, we provide walking and cycling routes, cycle storage, implement minimum space standards, and enhance biodiversity on our developments.

Promoting the use of clean energy

In support of Sustainable Development Goal 7 to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

Carbon positive

We are delighted to have become the first carbon positive housebuilder by decreasing operational carbon emissions and offsetting more than our remaining emissions during 2018.

Clean energy

Within our homes and developments, we incorporate clean and renewable technologies and promote the installation of energy efficient appliances.

Supporting decent work

In support of Sustainable Development Goal 8 to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all.

Addressing the skills crisis

By working closely with our contractors, we have rapidly increased the number of apprentices and people undertaking vocational training within our workforce.

Job creation

We support thousands of jobs and aim to provide the right environment and support to enable our staff to fulfil their potential.

Addressing modern slavery

We have taken steps to ensure that slavery and human trafficking does not take place within our business and throughout our supply chain.

Ensuring an inclusive working environment

In support of Sustainable Development Goal 10 to reduce inequalities within and among countries.

Diversity and inclusion

We aim to create an inclusive environment where employees can reach their full potential, irrespective of their identity or background.

Living wage

We pay at least the Living Wage Foundation's 'Living Wage' to all direct employees.

In 2015, all 193 Member States of the United Nations adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda. We use the SDGs to guide our approach and have identified the eight that we have the most material ability to influence, as we believe every business has a duty to contribute towards the global achievement of these goals. Click on each goal above to see how we promote each in our day-to-day business activities and through the homes and places we create.

What is sustainability to the Berkeley Group?

In its simplest terms - people, planet and prosperity. We think about these three aspects during our operational activities and also in terms of the developments and places we create.

Our goal

Our goal is to be world-class in the area of sustainability, both in terms of running our business efficiently and considerately and by developing sustainable places. We are committed to being a responsible business which thinks about the long-term. We seek to not only reduce negative impacts but to maximise the benefits our activities can bring to create a positive impact.

We are honoured to hold The Queen's Award for Enterprise for Sustainable Development, the UK's highest accolade for business success. This was awarded in 2014 for a period of five years, in addition to having received it in 2008.

Creating net biodiversity gain

Nature brings people together and creates a sense of identity and belonging. It feeds our families, cools and cleanses our cities, and generates financial value in a myriad of ways. Despite this, we as a society have let nature decline, and as a result species, habitats and communities are under threat. We want to reverse this, and create places with more nature afterwards than before.

The Berkeley Group is committed to creating a net biodiversity gain on all new developments. We made this commitment as part of our business strategy Our Vision. We consider net gain from the early design stages, to make sure that we are retaining and creating the right habitats. To help our design teams achieve this we have developed The Nine Concepts to inform our approach and we work with our ecologists, landscape architects and Local Wildlife Trusts to make this happen.

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Creating successful places

In 2012, Berkeley began working with experts in the field of social sustainability to create a framework that can be used to measure people's quality of life and wellbeing in new housing developments. It consists of 13 criteria in three dimensions:

Social and cultural life (what it's like to live there)
Voice and influence (how people affect what goes on)
Amenities and infrastructure (the design and facilities)

We have published a toolkit to help developers and planners apply the ideas behind social sustainability to individual sites, together with independent assessments of Berkeley developments which reveal what life is like for residents living in the places we build.

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Our Vision

Our approach to sustainability is integrated into our long-term business strategy, called Our Vision.

Reports & Case Studies

We are proud that we have had a long-term commitment to sustainability. Our commitment is integrated into our approach and delivered through the framework of Our Vision. Find out more about our achievements in sustainability.

Governance & Management

In order to work towards the achievement of our sustainability objectives and commitments we have a governance and management structure in place.