Helping Sustainability for Housing tell its story and shape its strategy

Sectors: Housing,

Services: ESG and Sustainability Communications Consultancy, Strategic Communications,

The client

Sustainability for Housing (SfH) is a membership-based organisation dedicated to advancing sustainability across the UK housing sector. Through its work with housing association and Adopters, SfH helps organisations measure, manage and improve their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance.

It also oversees the Sustainability Reporting Standard (SRS), providing a framework that enables housing providers to report consistently on sustainability outcomes. In July 2026, the SRS has 215 SRS Adopters & Endorsers, including 140 Housing Providers.

As a sector leader, SfH plays a key role in promoting best practice, tackling shared sustainability challenges, and ensuring sustainability remains a priority across the housing industry.

The challenge

With sustainability becoming an increasingly important focus for housing providers, SfH needed to strengthen how it communicated its purpose, value and impact to members and wider sector stakeholders.

Alongside telling its own story, the organisation faced the challenge of keeping sustainability at the forefront of industry conversations, sharing best practice from its Adopters, and helping the sector navigate complex sustainability issues.

As a relatively small organisation with a broad remit, SfH required a strategic communications partner that could provide both day-to-day support and long-term guidance. The goal was to embed communications at the heart of the organisation, ensuring that messaging, stakeholder engagement and storytelling consistently supported its wider mission.

The solution

Social has partnered with SfH for several years, providing retained PR and communications support across a wide range of activities.

Acting as both a trusted advisor and critical friend, we have worked closely with the SfH team to develop and deliver communications strategies that align with organisational objectives. Our support has included:

Communications strategy and planning
Thought leadership development
Media relations and trade press engagement
Social media campaigns
Event planning and promotion
Report design and content support
Stakeholder communications
Ongoing performance monitoring and reporting.

By working together on a retained basis, we have been able to take a joined-up approach to communications, helping SfH move beyond individual campaigns and embed communication throughout the organisation.

One standout project has been the development of a quote-led storytelling campaign centred on the Sustainability Reporting Standard (SRS). We engaged directly with SfH Adopters to gather first-hand accounts of how adopting the SRS had benefited their organisations. These testimonials were then brought to life across SfH’s website, LinkedIn channel, presentations and other communications materials, showcasing the impact of the framework through authentic voices from the sector.

“The results of this campaign have been powerful, with our Adopters’ stories showcased in their own words on our website, LinkedIn page, presentations and more. This is a great example of effective storytelling that Social has helped us achieve.” – Danielle Hughes, Head of Sustainability for Housing.

The impact

Our ongoing partnership has helped SfH sharpen its communications focus and strengthen engagement across the housing sector.

Through regular reporting and board-level presentations, we provide clear, measurable insight into communications performance, including website traffic, social media engagement and media coverage. This has enabled the organisation to better understand what is working and where to focus its efforts.

As a result, SfH has become more focused in its communications approach, more confident in its storytelling, and better connected with stakeholders across the sector.

The retained model has also created the space for bigger-picture thinking, allowing communications to be woven throughout the organisation rather than being delivered through isolated projects.

Reflecting on the partnership, Danielle Hughes, Head of Sustainability for Housing, said:

“Social has enabled us to focus in on the communications objectives that really matter.”

And…

“Sustainability for Housing is undoubtedly more focused as an organisation, better at storytelling, and more effectively engaged with the sector’s stakeholders than we would be without Social’s support.”

By combining strategic advice with practical delivery, Social has helped SfH amplify its voice, showcase the value of the Sustainability Reporting Standard, and strengthen its position as a leading sustainability advocate within the housing sector.

Retained communications support has been invaluable to us. Having Social's ongoing support has allowed us to work with them in a properly joined up manner, allowing us to engage in big-picture thinking rather than simply working on one-off campaigns or ad hoc projects. This style of support has helped us weave communications across our organisation, which we have found very effective.

Danielle Hughes, Head of Sustainability for Housing

The client

The challenge

The solution

The impact

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