The first step on any journey is a plan, and SRS Reporting is not a simple process! 

What Is An SRS Report?

The Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing is an ESG framework designed for the housing sector. This ESG standard helps provide lenders and investors a clear look at the ESG performance of both Housing Associations and the social housing sector as a whole. 

SRS Reports should focus on their positive social impact, energy efficiency of their buildings and other functional requirements in terms of environmental, social and governance metrics of providing affordable homes. If you would like to know what an SRS document should contain, please read our detailed article. 

What Are The First Steps Of ESG Reporting?

The SRS for housing report should essentially focus on the sustainability for a Housing Association’s long term ESG projects. So what are the first steps?

1) Define Your Metrics:

ESG in housing is so specific that the SRS has already outlined this for you. However, you should consider how much of the optional metrics you can report on. Whilst larger housing associations should aim to focus on all, smaller housing associations should consider which data they can gather.   

2) Gather Your Data:

This will mean spreadsheets, which can become easily overwhelming! It is important that your data be as up to date as possible so you can publish the most accurate figures in your reports. 

3) Calculate your Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions:

This may be difficult to do but there are products developing to help you do this, including our own Convene Carbon Calculator! Get in touch if you would like to learn more.

4) Pull Together Other Housing Association’s Data For Benchmarking:

You will want to see how your data compares to your peers. Are you reaching and succeeding in the same targets or are there clear areas in which your organisation needs to improve! This will all matter to investors and lenders.

5) Present your data:

You will need to now write your report, fill out the SRS template, create your graphs, and essentially make it pretty! Your SRS report will be shown to the board, to your peers, to lenders and investors so you need to make it presentable!

How Can Convene Help With Your ESG Reporting?

Convene, working with our vast number of Housing Industry clients, have developed a new software tool, Convene ESG, to help you produce the best ESG and SRS reports possible. By simplifying and automating much of the process, you can be sure that your ESG report building runs smoothly, so you can focus on developing your sustainable strategies. 

With Convene ESG, you can develop a collaborative workflow, assigning certain sections of the ESG or SRS report to the required people. Once all the sections are filled in, Convene ESG will produce a formatted Word Document or spreadsheet ready for you to publish!  

Convene ESG also has a built-in comparison feature, which allows you to compare against competitors' formatting of their publicly accessible reports, and their results! This will help the whole of the housing sector develop the best reports possible!

As a software provider already trusted by 100s of housing organisations, including Orbit Housing, you can trust us to provide you with dedicated service.

If you’d like to learn more, you can read about our early adopters here, or contact us for a free demo. Also keep an eye on our LinkedIn and Instagram as we will be scheduling more free webinars soon!