On the 15th and 16th of March, Convene attended the Housing Finance Conference and Exhibition 2023 in Liverpool. We want to thank the NHF, as well as all speakers and attendees for putting on and participating in an engaging and insightful conference. If you missed our talk, please join us at our Inside Housing Webinar next week.

The Housing Finance Conference focused on ‘building resilience through turbulent times’, and featured many interesting talks on topics surrounding the cost of living, sustainability and green finance, cybersecurity and the future of the housing sector.

Housing Associations are paving the way for other sectors with their ESG efforts, but the task of ESG shouldn’t just fall on one ESG manager. ESG needs to be integrated into everyone’s day-to-day task management and governance processes. Here are our helpful tips on how this can be achieved simply and seamlessly.

Today we were joined on our webinar by Dr. Ad Hereijgers from Ritterwald to discuss what their label means for the future of the SRS. 

Convene is the leading Board Portal provider to the Housing Sector. Read on to find out why.

Over the 2nd and 3rd of February 2023, Convene sponsored the NHF’s Board Excellence in Housing Conference. We want to thank all of the speakers and attendees for their engagement, as well as the NHF for putting on a fantastic conference.

This year, the conference was an online event. As a Board Portal, we were especially excited to be involved, as we are dedicated to pioneering virtual collaboration and communication. 

NHF’s online platform allowed us to participate in a number of informative talks and workshops on topics surrounding Board effectiveness and housing.

A central theme of this conference was flexibility, and the need for housing associations to be open to change due to the uncertainty of this year’s financial landscape.

Speakers were focused on exploring the challenging road ahead, and preparing associations for mitigating this unsteady future, with rising rates of inflation and the cost of living crisis within the housing sector.

Another key theme of this conference was sustainability and monitoring decarbonisation practices for housing associations.

Convene’s Associate Consultant Arturo Dell spoke about the Sustainability Reporting Standard (SRS) and the challenge of reaching decarbonisation targets with the current speed of progress within the sector.

He spoke about Convene ESG, and the importance of data integrity and quality for housing associations to manage their sustainability.

With Convene ESG, the aim is to alleviate some of the challenges of ESG data gathering, performance tracking, and reporting for ESG factors so organisations can move towards global sustainability and net zero.

Arturo expressed the importance of associations and organisations embedding ESG principles into the fabric of the organisation, and this links to another vital theme of the conference which was a focus on inclusivity and diversity. 

The NHF launched their Roadmap to Equality: an Inclusive Future resources, and alongside this was a series of talks about the importance of diversity and inclusion, especially for housing associations that work so closely with a diverse range of people. 

Speakers highlighted how crucial it is that Boards reflect the communities they serve, and how there is still a lot of key work to be done to improve diversity, equality and inclusion at every level of organisations.

This tied into the conference’s overall emphasis on a need for both change and changeability for housing associations.


Here at Convene, we want to make sure you have software you can rely on, even in uncertain times. 

As the leading Board Portal Provider for the Housing sector, the future of the industry is extremely important to us. We want to help pioneer flexible, sustainable and accessible communication for your housing association.

Convene is an all-in-one Board Portal designed to streamline meetings, and it is now fully integrated with Microsoft Teams, so you can have your workflow all in one place.

We also feature Convene ESG, our own ESG reporting tool, to help your organisation get one step closer to Board excellence.

To find out more about how Convene can help your organisation, you can contact us or book a demo today. Or read our success stories from your peers here. 

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

Today we hosted yet another successful webinar, this time choosing to focus on the future of ESG. 2023 will also bring in new challenges, including how to report on Scope 3 emissions, net zero targets and how to sustainably build new homes. The SRS can help massively with this as it allows for a collaborative effort amongst other Housing Associations. Convene ESG is working on assisting you with these problems by creating a Carbon Calculator and ensuring our “best practices” library is regularly updated. 

On 6 December 2022, Convene sponsored and participated in the NHF’s National Smaller Housing Associations’ Conference and Exhibition. Having attended the conference last year and had a valuable time, we were excited to once again dive into the world of smaller Housing Associations.

Smaller Housing Associations have many important concerns, from safety to financing. Therefore, it is easy for more seemingly trivial matters like Environmental Social Governance (ESG) to get left to the wayside. However, the knock on social impact of not taking these issues seriously for your residents, particularly during this housing crisis, are dire. 

It was time again for another of Convene’s ESG Webinars earlier today, if you missed out you can watch the recording here. 

There are numerous reasons you may want to develop more sustainable buildings. In the long term, creating carbon neutral homes should benefit your organisation as well as your tenants.

Orbit Housing recently spoke at one of our coveted ESG webinars. Orbit Housing Group is one of Convene ESG’s early adopters and discussed how Convene ESG helped them to successfully execute their ESG goals. If you were unable to attend, you can read on for our summary or attend our next ESG webinar, keep an eye on our LinkedIn and your inbox.

This week, Convene were delighted to attend the NHF’s National Housing Summit. We’ve attended a number of the NHF’s conferences in 2022 and were delighted to have another chance to connect with housing professionals from around the country. This year, the event was held at the ICC in Birmingham.

Housing Associations in the UK have been signing up in droves to the SRS. This ESG metric allows Housing Associations to hone in on KPIs that actually matter to them. The benefits of a solid ESG plan can be seen in your profitability, not only because most schemes will save you money in the long term, but also because it can encourage external investors.