Inspace, the social housing specialist that is part of Willmott Dixon Group, is the highest placed social housing contractor in NextGeneration's 2008 report measuring the sustainability performance of the UK's top house builders.

The report entitled 'Developing homes for a changing climate', ranks the performance of the UK's 20 largest house builders in how they are addressing the challenge of climate change within their business and on projects. On that list, Inspace came fourth with a score of 65% measured against NextGeneration's criteria.

It is the second year that Inspace has been included in the process regarded as the housing industry’s most authoritative benchmark for the sustainable performance of house builders and improves on last year's position of sixth. A company's position is based on information gleaned by NextGeneration's auditors from publicly available information and interviews with Inspace, enabling them to assess the company's approach.

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Inspace scored 100% in the areas of governance, environmental management and customer engagement, and also performed strongly in strategy, supply chain management, water use and energy efficiency. Areas identified for improvement included its reporting of information on waste and impact of transport.

Innovation and Sustainability Managing Director Brendan Ritchie said: "Nowhere is sustainability more on the agenda than social housing, where the Government has set tough performance targets for homes built with public money such as the Code for Sustainable Homes. Having our performance scrutinised by NextGeneration is important as it gives us a respected, independent and impartial third party assessment of how we are addressing the challenge of building homes with less impact on the environment.

"There are further regulations coming in areas like water consumption, energy efficiency, reducing construction waste to landfill and reducing carbon emissions. We want to develop our affordable and replicable solutions for these now, and be ready to meet them when they are introduced."

Although market conditions in the housing sector remain turbulent, Inspace believes it is in house builders' long-term best interests to develop their understanding of how to address both the short- and long-term implications of climate change and to build to ever-higher environmental standards.

(CD/JM)