Achieving Gold accreditation for the second year in a row from the housing sector's primary independent sustainability standard is a huge achievement for Coastline.
The award, from Sustainable Homes Index for Tomorrow (SHIFT), demonstrates our continued dedication across the entire organisation, and the hard work of our employees to maintain the highest level of environmental performance.
Ella Johnson, Coastline’s Assistant Sustainability and Data Insights Analyst, said: “Receiving Gold again for our SHIFT accreditation is a great accomplishment for the organisation.
“Not only does it reflect our progress towards net zero, it also shows our ongoing commitment to data quality and transparency. Going forward we will use this to drive our internal improvements and to create enduring change for our customers and communities.”
This year we received our highest overall score to date, as well as within the themes of Offices & Operations and Strategy & Leadership. The introduction of our 2025-2030 Environmental Strategy has helped to guide our sustainability practices and will continue to shape our work in this area.
This report is extremely valuable as it allows us to reflect on our work across a wide range of areas. It provides us with tangible actions we can take to further improve our sustainability methods and to reduce our environmental impact.
As SHIFT notes: “Environmental issues continue to be a priority for the sector. Timely intervention is essential if UK social landlords are to reduce residents’ energy costs, strengthen homes against the impacts of climate change, and create sustainable communities.”
Summary of report
Existing Homes
Energy performance data was extracted by Coastline’s Sustainability & Carbon Analyst from its asset management database, which indicated an average Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) of 75.29 has been achieved across their housing stock.
Fuel Poverty
According to data held within Coastline’s asset management database, 4,092 properties are believed to have an EPC rating of C or above, equivalent to 85.43% of Coastline’s housing stock.
Heat Networks
Coastline identified 103 properties on heat networks. The relevant 2025 Defra conversion factors have been applied to the total 922,575.49 kWh of energy used and this equates to 8,957.04 kWh per home and 168.79 tonnes CO2e.
Water (Existing Homes)
As is common across the sector, a full assessment of water efficiency has not been completed across Coastline’s housing stock. Therefore, the SHIFT water efficiency estimator tool has been used. This uses build age data to identify the likely water efficiency measures in place. For Coastline this estimates 134.17 litres per person per day (lpd).
Domestic Recycling
SHIFT estimates that 8.81% of Coastline’s homes are fitted with internal recycling bins, based on assumptions derived from property build dates.
Based on the assumed internal recycling bins installed and this engagement programme, a 4.25% increase in the likelihood of residents diverting waste from landfill is estimated.
Fly Tipping
329 fly tipping incidents were recorded by Coastline over the reporting period, equating to 68.68 per 1000 homes.
Biodiversity and Green Spaces
The SHIFT biodiversity tool estimates 46.64 habitat units per hectare of land owned, which equates to 0.65 total habitat units across Coastline’s stock.
Homes Resilient to Flooding
Coastline provided the results from their flood risk assessment which indicated that 89.87% of homes are at low risk of flooding.
Homes Resilient to Overheating
The SHIFT overheating risk assessment uses information on housing stock property types, postcodes, communal heating and build dates along with SHIFT sourced data on risk factors such as the urban heat island effect and population density to estimate overheating risk in Coastline’s housing stock. It is estimated that 86.89% of Coastline’s homes are at low risk of overheating.
Resident Engagement – Energy Efficiency
100% of residents have access to energy efficiency advice on Coastline’s website, where its Ways to be greener page includes advice and links to further resources.
It is considered that more active engagement with residents can have the greatest impact and Coastline operates a number of initiatives involving active engagement on energy efficiency, including energy use advice as part of its cost of living and energy bill support and advice and support for householders eligible for retrofits via ECO4 funding. 30.52% were engaged in this way.
These measures resulted in a SHIFT score of 2.70 out of 3 for performance on resident engagement on energy efficiency.
Sustainable Transport
For sustainable transport facilities it has been estimated that 7.14% of Coastline’s homes have cycle storage facilities provided, based on build date assumptions. 4.28% of Coastline’s homes have EV charging infrastructure.
As a result of Coastline’s sustainable transport interventions, the increased likelihood of residents using sustainable transport is 2.57%.
New Build
Coastline reported that 6.22% of homes achieved an EPC A (SAP 92+) and 7.66% a high EPC B (SAP 86-91). 35.89% of homes were rated as a low EPC B (SAP 81-85), and 50.24% of homes were rated as an EPC C (SAP 69-80).
100% of new homes are at low risk of flooding, 66.80% use responsibly sourced materials and 80.38% meet Biodiversity Net Gain requirements or have biodiversity enhancements.
Energy Usage
Coastline provided updated energy data for its office spaces. Office emissions have been calculated using the relevant 2025 Defra carbon conversion factors. In total, it is estimated that 44.53 tonnes of CO2e were emitted in the assessment period which equates to 27.08 kg CO2e per m2 of office space.
Other Landlord Supply
Coastline identified 1,246,547.52 kWh of communal area energy usage during the reporting period. The associated CO2e was calculated using the relevant Defra conversion factors. This totalled 239.54 tonnes CO2e or 50.01 kg CO2e/home managed.
Business Mileage
Based on the evidence provided, it is estimated that 31.13 tonnes CO2e or 6.50 kg CO2e per home managed was emitted through business travel.
Water (Offices & Operations)
Water is a crucial resource, plus, water bills are rising so it is worth reviewing water use in offices to see if efficiency can be achieved. Billing data was provided for Coastline House and use for the reporting period was estimated from meter readings to be 665.36 m3 in total or 6.35 m3 per employee.
Waste
Coastline receives a report from its waste contractor detailing the volume of waste collected from its office and this was 7,435 kg during the calendar year 2025 (used as representative for this assessment). This equates to 71.01 kg per employee.
Office Consumables
SHIFT assumptions on the proportion of typical purchase types were used and from this it is estimated that 51.95% of office consumables are responsibly sourced.
Offices Adapted to Flooding and Overheating Risk
Coastline’s office is considered at very low long-term chance of flooding from surface water and rivers/the sea. No official overheating survey of Coastline’s offices has been conducted, but it is documented that the office is at low risk to overheating and members of staff have not reported any overheating issues.
Strategy and Management
Coastline has scored 10 out of 15 for an effective strategy. Its Coastline Plan Environmental Strategy 2025-30 is publicly available on its website.
Direct Labour Organisation (DLO) and Supply Chain
Coastline provided DLO fuel usage reports covering the whole of the reporting period and detailing the total litres of diesel purchased and miles travelled in battery electric vehicles. The associated CO2e was calculated using the relevant Defra conversion factors and totals 264.22 tonnes CO2e.
Coastline’s DLO accounts for approximately 64% of the total spend on responsive repairs, planned maintenance and refurbishments, so this was scaled up to provide an estimate of the total emissions related to these services. This is estimated as 411.68 tonnes CO2e or 85.95 kg per home managed.
The total embodied carbon for Coastline’s DLO is estimated to be 188.57 tonnes CO2e, which is equivalent to 39.37 kg per home managed.
Responsibly Sourced Maintenance Materials
Coastline does include responsible sourcing in its supply chain survey and one of its suppliers is known to be in the process of accrediting its supply chain but it is unclear how comprehensive this is yet and as no detail or evidence was provided for the figures provided, the SHIFT default value of 58% responsibly sourced has been applied for this year’s assessment.
Refurbished Recycling
Coastline provided a recycling report from its waste contractor confirming that 82.90% of its waste had been diverted from landfill. This was scaled along with a contractor survey response to represent the entire supply chain and to estimate that 92.78% of refurbishment waste was diverted from landfill.
SHIFT carries out a full range of environmental reporting specialising in the social housing sector. We do:
- SHIFT standard – environmental reporting and accreditation for existing homes, new build, supply chain and offices
- Related consultancy and compliance e.g., ESG, ESOS and SECR reporting
- Environmental road mapping and strategy development – creating a path from a baseline to a truly sustainable housing stock whilst maximising financial benefits to the landlord
- Post-Occupancy Evaluation – comparing actual performance in retrofit and new build with design performance