Measuring social and environmental responsibility – the Innerspace Impact Canvas

Innerspace has set out its commitment to undertake all its residential housing development activities in as socially and environmentally sustainable a way as possible. Supporting this bold commitment requires an approach which provides both a robust mechanism for aligning commitments at company level, with delivery as project level.  It must also provide clarity and transparency for all reporting, from investors and the project team to end users.

Innerspace’s business commitment is underpinned by a set of social and environmental performance objectives:

1. To measure each scheme’s projected social and environmental performance on ‘Day 1’
2. To establish a series of holistic performance targets across a broad range of themes and which will be included in the technical objectives provided to the development manager and design team for any given project
3. To set out a process for the measurement of the actual performance of individual houses and the construction activities associated with each development scheme
4. A mechanism to support continual improvement towards longer-term ambitions, and
5. Clear and transparent reporting methods for communicating any benefits to stakeholders (CSR benefits) under defined ESG and UN SDGs benchmarking

A framework approach:

Innerspace’s ‘Impact Canvas’ has been established as a multi-level framework approach which links

commitments and delivery, and employs a series of KPIs to demonstrate and manage performance.

The framework is based around four steps, highlighting Innerspace’s sustainability ‘themes’ and high-level principles, underpinned by a set of key questions and performance indicators. This systematic approach ensures all project outcomes are rooted within Innerspace’s priorities and will ensure consistent reporting across all projects and activities.

Image: Innerspace ‘Impact Canvas’ radar example

Innerspace has committed to standardising and measuring outcomes against 10 key Themes.

1. Energy, Carbon and Climate
2. Materials
3. Biodiversity
4. Waste and resources
5. Health & wellbeing
6. Community
7. Building
8. Travel & transport
9. Affordability
10. Governance

The ‘Impact Canvas’ allows Innerspace to robustly demonstrate its project-by-project sustainability credentials, offers a clear route to measurement, learning and improving and instils a transparent reporting mechanism linked to clear ESG and UN SDG principles.

From energy usage to emissions, the construction industry has a huge impact on our environment and our health and wellbeing. Whilst adopting sustainable construction methods is not an overnight process, the commitment and action to do better is advancing as a ‘must’ for all involved in construction. Innerspace strongly believes that by adopting a framework approach, it can start to measure and understand the impacts from its construction activities and pave a way for improving its social and environmental impacts.