The Sustainability Reporting Standard was set out by The ESG Social Housing Working Group to help establish a framework for Housing Associations to report on ESG.
When writing your SRS Report, you should ensure it adheres to the SRS Framework. If you are unsure of what this entails, please see our article here about the original SRS requirements, and here for information on the Spring 2022 updates. If you are viewing this article after 2022 please ensure you check that there have not been any more updates!
Now that you know the criteria you should investigate and have gathered up the relevant information, you are looking to collate it all. But how exactly should it look?
What Does An ESG Report Look Like For Housing Associations?
Your SRS Report will likely be prefaced by an ESG Report. This is so your investors can see how and what is your current and future progress in ESG KPIs. This should also include your ESG manifesto or statement to outline why you are focusing on the aspects of ESG that will be reported on.
Your ESG report should then detail your ESG plan to show what necessary steps are being taken, and will be taken, to further your projects. It may also be useful to show the progress of your ESG story with anecdotal case studies and quantitative data.
After demonstrating your ESG review in a way that is easily digestible for your average reader you should insert your SRS Report. This can be presented in the table form given by the ESG Social Housing Working Group.
Top Tips When Putting Together Your SRS/ESG Report:
A good SRS report includes several different factors. These include but are not limited to:
1. Clear Sections
You may find it easy to group your sections under a clear agenda. This may be grouping things by each of the SRS report criteria or using Environment, Social and Governance sections to underline what you are doing for each element of ESG.
2. Graphs
Graphs are an easy way to demonstrate your quantitative data. They are a simple method of communicating to your stakeholders and shareholders the success of your current endeavours and the projections for the future.
3. Refer Back To The Framework
Orbit Group, one of our ESG early adopters, regularly referred to the SRS to see what they should be doing. This will help you focus on what your sector cares about. Whilst all of your ESG efforts are important, it is crucial in your ESG report to show how you plan to insulate more homes, switch to green energy and minimise your building waste.
4. Assign Tasks
With good delegation comes great collaboration! By giving the right sections of the report to the appropriate people you can be sure your report will come together looking cohesive and informed. Project managers should ensure tasks are clearly assigned throughout the report development process.
5. Compare With Your Peers
See how your peers, or even your competitors, organise their ESG reports. Many organisations have been publishing ESG reports for a few years, which means there is a publicly accessible record for what your ESG report could look like! You can also compare benchmarks to see the areas in which you are succeeding or falling behind!
How Can Convene ESG Help You?
Convene ESG is designed for Housing Associations with the assistance of Housing Associations. Our Early Adopters discussed with us what they needed and with their requirements we developed a tool that would help Housing Associations generate the best ESG and SRS Reports possible.
With Convene ESG you can compare benchmarks, organise your report, assign sections, automate reminders and input your ESG data. The solution will create a word document ready to publish or edit as necessary! Our comprehensive system features will support your journey in developing and writing an SRS document.
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