Good, green homes for all

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This report brings together a wide range of evidence that supports the case for delivering decent homes for all within planetary boundaries. It considers how to meet the human need for housing while at the same time minimising existential threats to human wellbeing posed by accelerating climate change and depletion of natural resources. It considers policy options and sets out proposals for change.

We are indebted to a great many experts whose studies of housing, environment, and wellbeing are featured here. Combined, they provide a rich resource for all those interested in building a genuinely fair and green housing system for the UK.

This is the fourth in a series published jointly by NEF and the Social Guarantee that considers aspects of social and environmental policy through the lens of universal basic services (UBS). Earlier reports focused on childcare, transport, and the contribution of public services to achieving environmental goals.

We draw on the idea of universal basic services (UBS), an eco-social approach to policymaking, which sees social and environmental policies as mutually reinforcing. The UBS framework offers value-based guidance for achieving key goals: Ensure universal access to life’s essentials, according to need, not ability to pay, as a right, not a privilege or concession. Safeguard the natural environment, so that needs can be met for future as well as current generations. Foster collective action, through state and community-based organisations, to meet human needs within planetary boundaries, because markets too often fail on both counts. This report focuses on four inter-linked dimensions of housing that are central to realising the UBS vision: sufficiency, sustainability, security, and setting.

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