M&G buys majority stake in green MMC housebuilder

M&G has bought a majority stake in sustainable housebuilder Greencore Construction to enable it to ramp up its development of sustainable homes.

The institutional investment giant says it plans to invest £500m over the next three to five years to build thousands of green new homes with the Surrey-based developer.

Greencore builds homes using closed panel timber fames manufactured off-site using natural materials including hemp, lime and wood-fibre. It says this leads to higher quality homes which are more energy-efficient as they lock up more carbon than is emitted during construction and over the lifecycle of the property.

Greencore, which according to its 2021 accounts had only 29 employees last year, has not previously built at scale.

It says the M&G investment will  give it the capacity it needs to “help transform the way homes are built in this country” and it wants to build “thousands of ultra-sustainable homes every year”.

It said a new factory in Oxfordshire will allow it to deliver 1,000 homes in the Thames Valley region and it wants to talk to landowners in other parts of the UK to open other manufacturing facilities.

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Ian Pritchett, managing director of Greencore Construction, said: “With this investment, Greencore can scale to have a transformational impact on sustainable housebuilding standards in this country. The built environment is one of the biggest emitters of carbon, both in construction and occupation, but we’ve shown it doesn’t have to be this way. Our homes are sustainable to build and sustainable to live in, which is becoming more important than ever as energy prices continue to spiral.”

Greencore says its home are built to Passivhaus energy standard with photovoltaic panels and will deliver net-zero energy performance. It says the heating energy used will be 10% to 20% that of a normal house.

Jack Daniels, chief investment officer at M&G PLC, said: “The scale, expertise and flexibility we have across our business means we are uniquely positioned to help Greencore transform UK house building to a more sustainable model.

“Our investment will enable thousands of people to live in high quality, comfortable and energy efficient homes, while also potentially benefitting millions of our customers and policyholders in our With Profits Fund.”