Greater collaboration on procurment and delivery will help landlords achieve net zero objectives

Recently, Prosper was instrumental in helping to create a unique, innovative partnership with North East landlord believe housing. 

The be:ONE partnership was established to encourage greater collaboration by working together to achieve significant savings, improve customer experience, and maximise the impact of social value in communities.

Around 5,600 homes will benefit from the works over the next four years, including the installation of new kitchens, bathrooms, windows and doors, full electrical re-wires, boilers, central heating systems and new roofs making the homes more energy efficient, reducing their carbon footprint and helping residents to reduce their bills. 

Prosper facilitated the partnership for believe housing, which also includes Buston & Maughan Group, RE:GEN Group, Sendrig Construction Limited and Sunter Limited. The company provided insight, intelligence and experience and helped to mobilise the partnership to come together. 

Rod said:

“With rising costs, the challenge around resources in terms of contracts to deliver this and meeting the skills gap, this procurement model helps to address these issues. 

“believe housing shared key asset data with all four contractors who worked together to build effective projects where each one was given clear workstreams and geographical areas to deliver works to. This approach resulted in commercial competitiveness being replaced with the adoption of a team approach when supply chain partners were shared and prioritised to the benefit of believe delivery, welfare facilities shared, purchasing materials through the partnership lowest cost option and assistance between the partners to facilitate apprenticeship completion.” 

Effectively, the be:ONE partnership encourages involvement directly from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Rod believes this model provides an incredible opportunity for others to follow believe’s true collaborative approach.

The be:ONE partnership launched in April and significant progress is already being made. Within the space of a month, the partnership completed internal and external improvements to more than 70 homes with excellent feedback from customers. 

Initial discussions have begun with the North East Housing Partnership (NEHP) – a membership of 17 housing associations, local authorities and arms-length management organisations (ALMOs) who have come together to promote the role social housing can play in supporting the delivery of the priorities of the new North East Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA).

One of NEHP’s thematic areas is a proposal to tackle net zero and sustainability where significant opportunities lie in the decarbonisation of their housing stock (collectively managing 214,000 homes), with high-quality new builds and extensive programmes of retrofit.

In its prospectus, it acknowledges that the NEHP, together with the new MCA, can go ‘further and faster’ by working together to deliver their shared net zero and sustainability goals through collective procurement and joint investment in innovation and green skills. But, also amalgamating funding to support net zero in one mayoral energy efficiency fund that can support place-based rather than tenure-based programmes.

Prosper specialises in the delivery of bespoke construction procurement solutions for public sector landlords and was first in the market to recognise the need and opportunity to create efficiency of delivery by developing a framework which encompassed traditional investment works alongside retrofit consultancy and installation works. It offers a range of property-related procurement frameworks and DPS’s covering new build, investment works, repairs and maintenance and most notably decarbonisation and retrofit.

Rod said:

“Our team of experts work with landlord partners to understand any issues which may arise, and identify solutions for the short term and long term with the goal of ensuring smooth delivery for our landlord partner and their residents.

“There is an incredible opportunity for landlords to collaborate to deliver their decarbonisation works and we are in discussions with a number of partners nationally to see how we can support them to help them drive their retrofit and green agendas.”