Low-carbon affordable housing makes sense: the case for long-term resilience is clear, as is the social value case. And yet investment doesn't flow at the scale required. The business case, as currently constructed, doesn't support it.

The instinct is to look for the technical fix inside the real estate valuation model. We think that's the wrong starting point. The business case problem isn't primarily a modelling problem, it's a systemic problem. Value is defined, measured, and rewarded across an interconnected system that includes finance, investment, land ownership, policy, public health and infrastructure. Many of the levers sit outside the metrics of traditional real estate valuation.

Treating this as a standalone real estate problem is likely to produce a partial answer.

ULI Europe have commissioned us to develop an interdisciplinary, systems approach to the problem, using collective intelligence and design thinking to think creatively about potential solutions.

The programme runs across three stages: preliminary mapping of the actors and feedback loops shaping the business case across and beyond the real estate sector; scenario-based collective intelligence workshops gathering diverse stakeholders including real estate investors and developers, local authority representatives, public health experts, insurers, utilities companies and landholding institutions; and targeted analysis translating collective insight into strategic solutions-oriented direction for phase two.

We're using elements of our CO_LAB methodology throughout, designed specifically for this kind of upstream, multi-stakeholder, solutions-focused convening.

Workshops are running in the second and third quarters of 2026. Findings coming soon.