The Future Homes Hub has been established to facilitate the collaboration needed within and beyond the new homes sector to help meet the climate and environmental challenges ahead.

In September 2020, the Future Homes Task Force was set up to develop a long-term delivery plan for the sector in line with the Government’s legally binding net zero and wider environmental targets. The Delivery Plan is divided into four areas with a goal and roadmap for each area. The Delivery plan also set out the specification for the Hub.

The goals are:

• High-quality homes that are zero carbon ready and sustainable.
• Places and developments that are consistently low carbon, nature-rich, resilient, healthy, well designed and beautiful by 2025
• Production and construction methods that are net zero and sustainable by 2050 with substantial progress by 2025 and 2030.
• Businesses that are recognised and rewarded for net zero and sustainability performance

The Future Homes Hub has now been set up as a non-profit making company limited by guarantee. We are an independent organisation bringing together the homebuilding sector with the wider circle of supply chain, infrastructure, finance and government organisations that need to collaborate. Over 40 of the largest homebuilders committed and many other related organisations committed to working together through the Hub to achieve the goals on publication of the plan. 

The business of the Future Homes Hub, laid out in the governing document is to “support the achievement of the aims and objectives set by the Future Homes Task Force in accordance with the Delivery Plan”.

In practice this means several types of activity:

• Developing technical solutions for regulatory changes.
• Collaborating sector-wide to overcome barriers to successful implementation, for example on skills and supply chain.
• Developing industry led proposals for current and future policy challenges
• Creating the basis for measuring sustainability performance capturing the value of improving performance.
• Communicating with all parts of the homebuilding sector, especially SMEs
• Facilitating sharing and learning across the sector.

We do not deliver directly, our modus operandi is to bring together the right people at the right time to provide the right answers to the right questions.  Sometimes our work will be preparing the sector for known changes in regulation and sometimes it will be helping to determine how future challenges can be overcome successfully. We will partner with relevant organisations where sensible to help create a joined-up landscape of support.

The immediate scope of the Hub’s work is currently England, though we are keen to work closely with other UK nations. Colleagues in both Wales and Scotland have expressed interest to collaborate with the Hub.

The longer-term Delivery Plan has been translated into a programme of work for the next three years as set out in the business plan.