Welcome to PREACH Inclusion’s® Resources page. Here we have shared helpful guidebooks and research to support your work and efforts with intersectional approaches to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
We also have a dedicated resources page to learn more about South Asian Heritage Month.
We regularly update this page with our own research or leading industry documents. If you would like to have your research or handbook uploaded to this page, or partner with PREACH Inclusion® on a new piece, please get in touch and we would be delighted to discuss this further.
Diversifying Real Estate Guidebook: Faith & Religion
January 2024
We are pleased to have supported the London Property Alliance with their final ‘Diversifying Real Estate’ guidebook, focusing on Faith & Religion.
An intrinsic and fundamental part of the daily life for many people, faith and religious-based practice is not often a part of the conversations that take place on workplace diversity.
This guidebook addresses the key barriers to how workplaces in the property industry can be more inclusive, with suggestions on how buildings and the public realm can be designed to better accommodate people of different faiths. It suggests simple ways for organisations and individuals to implement positive change, featuring best practice examples and signposting to resources.
This guidebook has been written with support from Priya Aggarwal-Shah (Founder and Director, PREACH Inclusion®); informed by a roundtable attended by CPA and WPA members and stakeholders of different faiths; with contributions and case studies from the wider sector.
In her foreword, Priya writes:
“The incorporation of religion and faith policies within the workplace is key to enabling people to be their true selves at work. It helps to create connections and break down barriers, ultimately, encouraging greater openness and psychological safety, the key measures of an inclusive culture.”
The production of this guidebook follows on from our support back in 2021 on London Property Alliance’s Race guidebook, which you can read below too.
Diversifying Real Estate Guidebook: Race
April 2021
Throughout Spring 2021, PREACH Inclusion® partnered with London Property Alliance to produce a Race guidebook for the real estate and property sectors. The guide aims to help individuals and organisations make Central London’s real estate sector more accessible and inclusive for black and minority ethnic people, with suggestions of way to improve representation and support at Board, middle management and NextGen levels. We are pleased to also have our founder, Priya Shah provide a foreword for this guide.
Informed by private roundtables attended by members, co-opted experts and stakeholders from local government, the guide provides best practice examples, signposts to resources and reflects on personal experiences.
This guidebook is part of a series of six themed diversity booklets commissioned by CPA and WPA NextGen, produced by London Property Alliance, and supported by NextGen champion, Gardiner & Theobald.
REPORT - Meeting the housing needs of BAME households in England: the role of the planning system
Research published by the Institute for Social Policy, Housing, Equalities Research (I-SPHERE) based at Heriot-Watt University has found that the planning process in England is reinforcing racial inequality, despite having clear potential to support the needs of ethnic minority residents.
The study, funded by Oak Foundation, focused on exploratory case studies and key informant interviews conducted over the a period of nine months throughout 2021. BAME in Property was pleased to be a part of the Advisory Group which provided evidence to support this research.
Amy Bristow, I-SPHERE and Oak Foundation research intern led the research. She found that planners and housing professionals lack the confidence, skills and resources required to actively address racial inequality in housing, perpetuating socially conservative outcomes and limiting opportunities for achieving racial equality.
Equalities considerations need to be embedded throughout any proposed central government planning reforms to compel local authorities to take account of issues of racial equality in all planning decision-making and to prevent these considerations from being tick-box exercises.
Additional recommendations include:
resourcing local planning authorities to keep up-to-date records of housing needs in their area, preventing a reliance on outdated records between censuses
attaching a clearer statutory duty to Equality Impact Assessments that obligate local authorities to act on any findings that reveal adverse impacts on groups with protected characteristics
Equalities and Human Rights Commission should issue clear guidance to local authorities specifically detailing the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty with regards to planning policy and practices.
Diverse Leaders Pledge
PREACH Inclusion® is proud to co-sponsor New London Architecture's Diverse Leaders Pledge. As a leading ethnic diversity organisation in the built environment industry, PREACH Inclusion® welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with an array of diversity networks, all making significant progress in their own right. Together we bring more skills, expertise and most importantly, the intersection of diversity, crucial to making lasting change.
As a group of 17 organisations, we are inviting you as industry leaders to join us in making a pledge to help make the built environment sector more representative through the recruitment, progression and advocacy.
The built environment industry has identified the need to overcome chronic discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, age and socio-economic background to create a strengthened, resilient and representative workforce.
Diversity is an asset to any organisation, with a diverse workforce a business can expect diverse and dynamic solutions and outputs, appealing to broader audiences and ultimately becoming a more successful and profitable business. A McKinsey & Company global study from 2019 found that ethnically diverse companies are 36% more likely to have financial returns above national industry medians and gender diverse companies are 25% more likely to do the same.
We recognise that diversity and inclusion are multifaceted issues and that we need to tackle these subjects holistically to better engage and support all underrepresented groups within our industry. To do this, we believe we also need to address honestly and head-on the concerns and needs of people from underrepresented and non-traditional backgrounds and increase equity for all. Collectively as industry leaders we agree that we must do more.
For us, this means committing to measurable goals over the coming years that we believe will catalyse change, enabling engagement, action and progress around diversity and inclusion within the workplace, fostering collaboration across the built environment industry as a whole.