With the UK Government firmly focused on growth and housebuilding, the rental sector plays a vital role in the prosperity of the UK economy, offering both an immediate solution to the housing crisis and a catalyst for economic growth. To build the homes we need in the current economic climate, increasing supply of rental homes should be a key priority.
Why Coliving? is a campaign to advocate for coliving homes to local authorities, national policymakers and investors, in order to encourage support for the tenure, increase investment and ultimately deliver much needed rental homes.
Coliving responds to local urban challenges and global needs
Community
Investment
Coliving supports the delivery of quality homes, helps regenerate local areas, provides value for money renting, and can be a key part of placemaking and community building strategies for city planners.
Cultural
Change
Coliving helps enable authentic connections amongst residents, fostering cultures of community, wellbeing, openness, engagement, and positive social and cultural change.
Sustainable
Living
Inherent aspects of coliving include energy efficiency, sharing of resources, best-in-class infrastructure, central location, proximity to public transport, and pro-social environmental behaviours.
Coliving is a modern form of professionally managed, rental housing which emphasises community, affordability and convenience. Residents have access to private compact studios and communal spaces, which often include shared kitchens, coworking, gyms, and lounge areas (like the ones shown above at Ark Wembley and Folk Sunday Mills).
Rents are inclusive of bills, and tenancy contracts are often more flexible than traditional rental homes. Both residents and the local neighbourhood are encouraged to socialise via events programming and design to encourage social interaction.
Industry leaders uniting for a unique campaign around coliving
These leading industry players are supporting this research and advocacy campaign and helping advance the sector with an evidence-backed report and multimedia content. Why Coliving? also has support and endorsement from the British Property Federation, Cascade Communications and CBRE.
An evidence-backed report will consist of the following data and findings:
- Definition of Coliving: Define coliving, including typologies and terminologies
- Resident Demographics and Needs: Provide data on residents served by coliving
- Social Value of Coliving: Present evidence of social, environmental, and economic impacts
- Best Practices and Case Studies: Showcase best practices and case studies in coliving
- UK Coliving Supply and Demand: Detail macro trends and supply imbalance in key UK cities
- Barriers to UK Coliving: Explore planning, licensing, regulatory and cultural challenges
- Recommendations: Provide recommendations for planning, regulation, design, ESG, social value, and community experience
Conscious Coliving and participating industry leaders will present findings at leading sector events in 2025. Public and private sector stakeholders will be invited to learn more about this growing industry, and how coliving can be a key solution for the UK’s housing sector.
Through specialist events, coliving site visits, conference presentations and press releases, Why Coliving? aims to promote the benefits and value of coliving throughout the UK housing industry.
Stay updated about the Why Coliving? campaign
and upcoming coliving site visits
We will be hosting site visits at some of the leading UK coliving communities and you can apply to join.
These site visits will occur in early 2025 and we will announce more about the site locations and dates in the coming months.
Please fill out the form to join the waiting list and hear more about the campaign.
I deeply believe with the coliving community exemplars coming through (e.g. Folk among others), there is a significant opportunity to meet the housing emergency we have in this country. Coliving is simply not scaling anywhere close to the trajectory we need it to across the UK. We want this to be a catalyst for developers to make coliving communities, local authorities to accept them in planning and institutional investors to actively target scale as they do in PBSA, BtR and other living asset classes."
There is significant potential for coliving to change UK housing for the better. Coliving can tick all of those boxes when done in a way that uses intelligent design, is considerate of the local area and people, and focuses on facilitating an excellent lifestyle for those in and around each building. Together we hope to demonstrate how coliving can not only help shape the future of urban living but also unlock housing delivery, economic growth, and investment in places.”
Coliving represents quality homes, value-for-money renting, and the generation of valuable neighbourhood capital. Its central location and emphasis on shared spaces and amenities also makes it an environmentally sustainable form of housing - an increasingly important factor when consdering our changing climate and national net zero targets. VervLife is proud to be at the forefront of the coliving sector in the UK, and we are pleased to join this collaborative project to demonstrate the positive impacts that we are having, both on residents, neighbourhoods, and the environment.”
Why Coliving? campaign co-leads
Dr Penny Clark
Director of Research & Sustainability
Conscious Coliving
Penny has a research background. Her PhD, which won a Coliving Award in 2022, explored and measured the environmental impacts of shared living communities, and she has since undertaken research on coliving for policy, industry and academic audiences. Penny has been interviewed about shared living in the BBC and the Guardian, along with having written about shared living in publications including The Developer, Coliving Insights, Conscious Cities, and the book, Urban Communal Living in Britain.
Matt Lesniak
Director of Impact & Innovation
Conscious Coliving
As an entrepreneur, community facilitator and impact strategist, Matt Lesniak works at the cross sections of the community building, impact, placemaking and shared living sectors. Matt has been a driving force behind the coliving sector for years, with a CV that includes The Collective, Co-Liv, and initiatives Coliving Insights and the Coliving Awards. Matt is a strong advocate for impact-driven coliving businesses, which embed environmental and social value throughout their communities.
