Building better foundations
In early 2025, we launched our systematic stewardship strategy, one of the three pillars of our engagement approach. We view this as stewardship with a sharper lens: a structured, data-driven method that helps us pinpoint gaps in extra-financial disclosure and identify where companies may be underperforming on economic profit.
At the heart of this approach is the resource usage and productivity indicator (RUPI), our proprietary quantitative model. RUPI evaluates how efficiently companies use resources, generate productivity and manage their environmental footprint. These insights are integrated into the screening process for our equity strategy baskets, making sustainability an embedded feature across portfolios, not an afterthought.
Since launch, we have initiated almost 50 systematic engagements, each one helping us build a clearer, more consistent picture of corporate behaviour and long-term value creation (as at 27 March 2026). Over the quarter, our focus turned to UK homebuilders held within one of our quantitative equity baskets tied to the UK credit impulse. This concept – developed by Ruffer’s Head of Macro Strategy, Mike Biggs – measures the change in the flow of new private sector credit relative to GDP. It serves as an early indicator of future economic activity.
As part of this themed engagement, we met with Taylor Wimpey, Bellway, Berkeley and Barratt Redrow (see Figures 1 and 2 for their comparative RUPI scores). Our engagement with Persimmon was rescheduled and we plan to engage with the company in Q2. We wanted to understand the challenges and opportunities each company faces in balancing financial and sustainability targets and how these priorities are communicated. We also explored supply chain management practices with a particular focus on Scope 3 upstream greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, waste and human capital, while encouraging all companies to further develop and ultimately publish a marginal abatement cost curve (MACC).
Alignment between climate transition planning and financial decision making, as well as the early identification and mitigation of potential crossroads, is critical to the success of a climate strategy. It ensures that climate risks and opportunities are reflected in capital allocation, operational planning and long-term value creation, enabling companies to make informed choices before constraints or costs escalate.
RUPI scores for a basket of stocks. We see the scores for the individual companies. For example, Taylor Wimpey performs well relative to the basket on ESG type metrics, but less well on debt and depreciating assets.
How individual scores are consolidated into a portfolio level score, where the basket overall performs less well on ESG type metrics. UK versus global homebuilders. Universe = global homebuilders | Basket = UK homebuilders in the credit impulse basket
Barratt Redrow provided a strong example of this integration in practice. The company described a governance framework that brings decarbonisation and financial targets together through four technical leadership meetings and weekly performance tracking. Target setting is deliberately rigorous. For instance, waste reduction goals were developed only after a full year of research and data gathering. Operational efficiency is incentivised directly – such as by linking reduced waste to forklift handlers’ bonuses – and supported by supply chain innovation, including cutting plasterboard to specification to minimise offcuts. Barratt Redrow emphasised its iterative approach of trialling and testing interventions, with structured communication channels that keep stakeholders aligned and ensure sustainability and financial considerations are embedded across day-to-day decision making.
Yet, even with strong internal alignment, companies continue to face wider challenges, particularly around Scope 3 emissions accounting. This remains a source of frustration, due to varying levels of supplier readiness, gaps in data maturity and the resource intensive process required to build reliable inventories.
Across the group, we saw a common challenge in the variation in the maturity of supplier carbon accounting and the consistency of Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) coverage, with most companies acknowledging the need for deeper supplier engagement and improved data quality. To support our analysis, we encouraged homebuilders to work proactively with suppliers – including through training or financing – to increase capabilities. Many said they were members of the Supply Chain Sustainability School and noted they encourage suppliers to engage with the programme. Bellway said supplier alignment remains mixed; the company has met with its top 50 suppliers to discuss efficiency and product development to support sustainability targets. Some suppliers, such as Ibstock and Forterra, face growing investor pressure to decarbonise, though progress remains a long journey.
Bellway is working closely with plumbers and MCS certification support providers such as Easy MCS. It is also monitoring the decarbonisation progress of carbon-intensive suppliers – including brick manufacturers – where reliance on hydrogen presents a material risk. Meanwhile, Berkeley is reviewing approximately 100 of its suppliers to identify capability gaps and is developing tailored training to meet the company’s sustainability targets. Sustained improvements in supplier engagement and data quality will determine how effectively homebuilders can translate their climate ambitions into practical, long-term decarbonisation outcomes.
Building on this, encouraging companies to provide more granular disclosure, particularly through a MACC, enhances clarity and transparency by highlighting which emissions-reduction projects are most cost-effective and value-accretive, enabling better prioritisation and capital allocation.
We believe this should help reduce delays, prevent economically rational abatement projects from being dropped and strengthen accountability and could ultimately accelerate the transition by aligning decarbonisation with financial performance. Across the group, we noted differences in the level of awareness and use of MACCs, although no company has publicly disclosed one to date.
Bellway said it is exploring MACCs for embodied carbon, prompted in part by Ruffer’s work on the topic. Taylor Wimpey similarly emphasised its ongoing work to cost available abatement options and said further detail will be included in its next CDP report, reaffirming its intention to publish a MACC in the coming years. Berkeley said publishing a MACC has not previously been requested by investors and had not yet been considered, but the company agreed to explore it further, including undertaking a cost-benefit analysis. Meanwhile, Barratt Redrow explained that, although it does not use a traditional MACC, it operates an internal carbon transition model owned by its sustainability finance team. This model is designed to assess project feasibility, including cases such as low-carbon technologies (HVO), and has been expanded to cover Scope 3 emissions, roughly half of which relate to upstream materials. Taylor Wimpey also highlighted its continued investment in site level R&D to trial lower carbon materials, reflecting a sector-wide focus on embodied carbon reduction ahead of regulatory changes, such as the Future Homes Standard.
However, regulation can contribute to delays: Bellway’s climate transition plan, for instance, remains pending as the company awaits the release of the final Future Homes Standard. Taken together, the varied levels of progress highlight why MACCs remain a critical mechanism for turning complex value-chain challenges into clear, prioritised abatement plans.
These discussions allow us to explore how each business is navigating a shifting credit environment while managing resource use, sustainability commitments and financial targets. Looking ahead, we will continue to monitor improvements in disclosure and assess the value of facilitating a collaborative dialogue between homebuilders to help advance supply chain capability and strengthen sustainability performance across the sector. ⬤