Berkeley Group is the UK’s most sustainable house builder, according to research by NextGeneration, the membership body for the sector.
The organisation, which is run by the environmental charity WWF-UK and the UK Homes and Communities Agency, assesses the sustainability performance of the UK’s top 25 house builders every year.
This time around, Berkeley, which operates mainly across the South East of England, scored a ranking score of 85% when assessed against more than 250 criteria for sustainable performance – the highest score achieved in the six-year history of the survey.
The company has come out on top every year since 2007.
Meanwhile, Crest Nicholson maintained its position of last year, coming second with a performance score of 83%, while Miller Homes ranked third with 76%.
The average member score was 71%, but Galliard Homes, which came bottom of the survey, managed a score of just 1%.
“The report highlights the progress of our leading house-builders who have taken some great strides over recent years, and who recognise that sustainability is inseparable from good quality and customer satisfaction,” said Paul King, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council.
The NextGeneration benchmark survey takes more than six months to complete and assesses those developers responsible for constructing over 50% of new homes in the UK each year with a combined construction value of £5bn.
“This year’s results demonstrate that an elite group of nine home builders are driving best practice in sustainability in the sector,” said NextGeneration’s Philip Hirst.
“This is the sixth year the benchmark has been undertaken and the improvement in performance from the first benchmark is remarkable, with companies battling to outperform each other across 50 different categories and achieving an average improvement of around 10% since 2006.” Companies are assessed based on their own sustainability performance as a company, including governance and risk management and the amount of energy consumed in their offices and onsite, as well as the sustainability of the homes and communities they create.
“We’re making climate change adaptation a fundamental part of how we design and build all our new developments,” said Rob Perrins, managing director of Berkeley Group. “Alongside a major new commitment to social sustainability, this is the kind of action that will keep driving our performance and create great places for people to live.”