Craig Stirrat

It’s Scotland’s Climate Week, when Scottish communities and businesses come together across Scotland to celebrate progress and recommit to taking action on climate change.

Whether or not you accept the cause of climate change, this week sets to remind us that our climate is indeed changing, that it is having an impact on our environment and wellbeing, and that society has a responsibility to take the necessary actions to mitigate our impact on the planet.

The changes we experience in our climate every year, becoming – warmer - wetter - windier – conversely reminds me of my early school days in the 1970s, watching the ice form on the inside of windows and my school teacher predicting to the class that we were due another ice age before the end of the 20th century.

Turns out my teacher wasn’t wrong to mention it — it was a genuine scientific curiosity at the time, but not a settled prediction. Today, we understand that the mid-20th-century cooling was a blip caused by pollution and natural variability. Once clean air regulations reduced aerosol emissions, the underlying warming trend, driven by greenhouse gases, became unmistakable.

Nowadays, scientists tell us climate models are more sophisticated to take full account for greenhouse gas effects and are confidently predicting an increased likelihood that heatwaves will become longer and hotter - winters wetter with increased heavy rainfall, rising sea levels, and a greater likelihood of extreme weather events like droughts and wildfires. All of which will have an adverse impact on our homes and the occupants.

As the world economies cry out for a longer transition, we all know that we can’t afford to wait and do nothing and that big changes start with small steps.

Here at Grampian Housing Association, we consider, like most housing associations, that we have a great deal of social responsibility because our business (and personal) activities have a huge impact on our tenants’ wellbeing, our communities and the wider environment. So, we are committed to becoming a more sustainable organisation that operates in a way that meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.

We recognised that to help tackle climate change it is necessary to reduce carbon emissions from all our activities - but that is not sufficient - and that we also require to become more sustainable in the widest sense.

Grampian Housing Association took a massive step forward with this challenge in 2021 when it produced its first sustainability strategy marking a significant step in embedding sustainability at the heart of its operations—supporting both its tenants and the wider community.

Despite our commitment, we required further corporate motivation to continue to drive forward the necessary changes. So, we looked to the SFHA for advice on which industry standard we could consider adopting to enhance credibility, improve performance, and access innovative solutions.

The SFHA suggested we consider the Sustainability Reporting Standard (SRS), which gives housing associations a consistent framework for measuring and reporting on sustainability performance, helping organisations like Grampian to demonstrate the impact on tenants’ lives and communities.

So, in June 2022, Grampian adopted the SRS, providing us with a clear framework to show how all aspects of our work create real value for tenants and communities. From building more affordable energy efficient homes; planting trees programme; lowering fuel bills through energy efficiency of existing homes; supporting staff to by EVs, to building sustainable neighbourhoods through the procurement of services and materials from renewable sources.

Climate Week is therefore a chance to celebrate these efforts and encourages everyone to get involved.

Our adoption of the SRS shows our commitment to putting people and communities first and the measured and reported outcomes – Environment, Social and Governance- add up to create meaningful step change for a greener and fairer Scotland…. no doubt it will still rain, but remember Billy Connolly once famously stated, “There’s no such thing as bad weather in Scotland, only inappropriate clothing.”