Andrew Stanton Analysis – Rethinking Sustainability in UK Proptech

ESG from obligation to advantage

By Andrew Stanton, CEO Proptech-PR

‘For many years, sustainability in UK real estate was treated as a reporting exercise, largely confined to compliance teams and annual disclosures. That era is ending. Across the property sector, environmental and social performance, underpinned by credible governance, is moving decisively into the heart of asset strategy. Technology is the catalyst for this shift. What was once optional or aspirational is now operational, measurable and increasingly commercial.

Digital property platforms have become the infrastructure through which modern sustainability strategies are executed. Smart meters, connected sensors, building analytics and energy management systems now provide owners and operators with continuous insight into how assets actually perform. Energy consumption, carbon output, water use, waste streams and occupant experience can all be tracked in real time. This visibility is no longer a nice-to-have; it is the foundation for decarbonisation, resilience and long-term asset viability. Just as critically, it enables a level of transparency that regulators and investors now expect as standard.

What is particularly striking is the change in mindset among UK asset managers and landlords. Technology-enabled sustainability is no longer seen simply as a compliance cost. Instead, it is increasingly recognised as a driver of value. Data platforms are helping decision-makers prioritise retrofit programmes, allocate capital more effectively and plan credible transition pathways for existing stock. The market is already reflecting this reality. Buildings that can evidence strong operational performance are proving more attractive to occupiers and investors alike, while inefficient assets face a growing risk of value erosion and functional obsolescence.

Environmental performance remains the most immediate pressure point, especially in relation to energy efficiency and carbon reduction. Here, smart building technologies are delivering tangible results. Artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and automated controls are reducing consumption and operating costs while improving reliability. Decisions that were once based on assumptions or periodic surveys are now informed by live data. At the same time, the focus has shifted firmly towards retrofitting. The sustainability challenge will not be solved by new development alone; it will be determined by how effectively the existing built environment can be upgraded and managed over its remaining lifecycle.

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Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR

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Cloud Strategy for 2026 – Pulsant

A new year of repatriation, resilience, and regional rebalancing

This year is set to be a pivotal year for cloud strategy, with repatriation gaining momentum due to shifting legislative, geopolitical, and technological pressures. This trend has accelerated, with a growing focus on data sovereignty. 

These challenges have set the stage for 2026 to be the year of repatriation, resilience, and regional rebalancing. Here, Rob Coupland, Chief Executive Officer at Pulsant, offers his insights.

Repatriation goes mainstream

In 2025, data repatriation became a key trend, with businesses re-evaluating cloud adoption due to rising costs, regulatory pressures, and concerns over data sovereignty. Many are moving workloads from public cloud to private cloud, on-prem, or colocation to gain better control, cost efficiency, and compliance. While cloud remains essential, a hybrid model combining public, private, and on-prem solutions is emerging as the future of enterprise IT strategy.

For UK businesses, this has prompted many to shift workloads from global hyperscalers to domestic providers, creating hybrid infrastructure blends, especially as data sovereignty becomes a top priority. Latest research indicates 87% plan to repatriate some or all of their workloads over the next two years.

In 2026, the momentum behind these changes will continue. Businesses will focus even more on visibility, data locality, sovereignty, and transparency. However, managing a hybrid or mixed infrastructure could pose challenges, as the era of static infrastructure fades away.

The continued impact of cyber security breaches

Last year witnessed several high-profile cybersecurity breaches in UK organisations, with the M&S incident being one of the most memorable. These breaches have led to increased awareness of where data is stored and how it’s managed, particularly within the supply chain.

Many businesses still don’t fully understand where their data resides, how it’s processed, or how it’s backed up. These breaches have renewed the focus on resilience, particularly in terms of the speed of recovery after an incident, rather than just prevention.

In 2026, this will influence data centre policies and services, with disaster recovery and backup becoming more standard. UK data centre providers are already stepping up with more transparent, compliant platforms to meet growing customer demands for visibility and secure infrastructure.

We’ll also see the true impact of the Cyber Security & Resilience Bill, as its guidelines start to shape industry practices and expectations.

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Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR

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Labour delivered just 62.2% of its year one target on new homes delivery

By Andrew Stanton, Proptech-X

When Labour won the 2024 general election, its manifesto committed to delivering 1.5 million new net homes over the following five years, the equivalent of an average of 300,000 homes per year. This pledge remains the government’s headline housing target. However, the latest available building indicators suggest delivery is already falling behind the required pace. Official proxy data drawn from EPC registrations, which are commonly used as an early signal of housing completions, indicates that between July 2024 and mid-June 2025 approximately 186,600 net additional homes were delivered.

That figure is materially below the annualised rate needed to remain on course for the manifesto commitment. Or simply put Labour delivered just 62.2% of its year one target, as well as making the mistake of employing a tax evader as Housing Secretary (who has yet to pay a fine, interest and £40,000 of unpaid SDLT and no doubt in her la-la mindset feels she should now get promotion to PM). 

To give political balance, the UK’s chronic undersupply of housing is not a new phenomenon. And the selling off of council or social housing, Margaret Thatcher’s great election winning idea has seen local authorities like Stevanage, who had 40,000 council/social houses dwindle to 8,000 as they were sold off and the cash was not used to build new ones, instead being used for ‘other’ things. 

What is new is the renewed political consensus around scale. The ambition to deliver 300,000 homes a year is both necessary and widely supported across the housing, development, and proptech sectors. Yet ambition alone does not build homes, and early delivery data suggests the system is once again struggling to convert political intent into physical output.

It is tempting to frame this shortfall as a political failure, but doing so risks obscuring the deeper issue. The reality is that the UK’s housing delivery system is not structurally configured to operate at this level of sustained output, regardless of which party occupies government. For decades, delivery has plateaued well below the 300,000 mark, even during periods of strong market conditions, lower borrowing costs, and comparatively benign supply chains. Expecting a sudden step-change without fundamental reform is unrealistic.

Interestinglly the tax evader did pledge £10Bn for social housing before she lost her job as Housing Secretary, but this soundbite will be lost as the realisation that there is no cash to carry out this major construction project exists, apart from an episode of ‘Fantasy Island.’

The constraints are well understood across the industry. Planning remains slow, opaque, and inconsistent, with many consented sites taking years to move into construction. Delivery remains heavily concentrated among a small number of volume housebuilders whose commercial incentives prioritise sales absorption and margin protection over speed. Skills shortages in construction continue to cap capacity, while volatility in build costs, finance, and viability negotiations has left many marginal schemes stalled. Overlaying all of this is a profound lack of joined-up data across planning, land, infrastructure, and utilities, which prevents informed decision-making and early intervention when sites begin to drift.

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Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR

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