C Change for Housing launch at ULI Conference in London

The Urban Land Institute Europe conference opens on Monday in London with the launch of C Change for Housing, a major new pan-European programme designed to mobilise the real estate industry around two of society’s most urgent and interconnected challenges: the climate crisis and housing affordability.

“We are proud to launch C Change for Housing, as the climate crisis is not only an environmental crisis but risks becoming a social crisis, disproportionately affecting vulnerable people in society and their health and wellbeing”, said Lisette van Doorn, CEO, ULI Europe.  “Tackling decarbonisation of social and affordable housing should be a number one priority, but the difficulty in building the business case with rent and value uplifts being limited often stalls any action.”

The housing sector lies at the crossroads of escalating environmental and social pressures. Housing unaffordability affects nearly 15 million people across Europe, while 1 million face homelessness. Many approaches to decarbonisation in the housing market favour high value assets and prime locations, which risk exacerbating social inequities, and despite a surplus of underutilised housing stock, systemic barriers continue to block the path toward equitable, net-zero housing. Tackling these dual crises in isolation is no longer viable, ULI believes.

C Change for Housing seeks to unify these efforts by bringing together industry experts to identify and remove the barriers that prevent scalable, inclusive, and sustainable housing solutions. The programme will focus on identifying systemic barriers preventing progress in achieving net-zero, affordable housing; developing practical, scalable solutions to overcome these obstacles, with a focus on investors, developers and managers of real estate;

educating and building the capacity of the industry through awareness raising and providing tools and guidance and showcasing best practice across the housing sector to drive action.

Building on the success of ULI’s flagship C Change programme, launched in 2021 to mobilise the real estate industry to decarbonise, C Change for Housing will adopt both top-down and bottom-up approaches. It will engage public and private sector practitioners and leaders to identify the most significant barriers to progress, prioritise them and co-create and incubate practical solutions. This top-down approach is complemented with bottom-up advisory services to test and feed into the solutions, as housing is predominantly local and ensure a just, inclusive and scalable transition process.

ULI is calling for input from experts and practitioners in residential development, investment, research, policy, and decarbonisation experts – as well as anyone passionate about advancing sustainable, affordable housing. A dedicated C Change for Housing Forum will take place on Monday afternoon, 16 June 2025, at the ULI Europe Conference in London.