Social Housing: Qualitel and Vivest combine their expertise at the 85th USH HLM Congress

Based on the experimentation and deployment of systems developed by QUALITEL, these initiatives are part of VIVEST's CSR strategy and its commitment to quality.

Beyond that, these partnerships help to inform social landlords about possible responses to three societal and regulatory challenges: access to quality housing for all, an efficient CSR approach and European obligations in terms of sustainable investment.

The QUALITEL Group and VIVEST: a long-standing partnership

Among its missions[1], the QUALITEL Group certifies, via its subsidiary CERQUAL Qualitel Certification, the quality and performance of housing. To this end, it issues the NF Habitat – NF Habitat HQE certification, integrating the challenges of sustainable development, through 4 fundamentals: Responsible management, Quality of life, Respect for the environment and Economic performance.

VIVEST has been committed to NF Habitat – NF Habitat HQE certification since its launch in 2015 and previously, since 1980, with the previous QUALITEL quality marks. To date, the lessor has more than 10.000 certified homes in its portfolio, both under construction and renovation.

This commitment is fundamental to VIVEST: it demonstrates its desire to provide social housing that meets high quality standards, for comfortable, economical, and environmentally friendly living environments. This priority is shared by CERQUAL through certification, and more generally by QUALITEL, through several systems and tools developed for stakeholders and/or the general public.

Four of these QUALITEL devices tested and/or deployed by VIVEST

QUALITEL and VIVEST have announced the establishment of partnerships that reflect the landlord's strategic commitment and current or future trends in the world of social housing:

Within the framework of NF Habitat – NF Habitat HQE:

VIVEST regularly seeks higher levels of certification. In this context, it will:

• Experiment with the Taxonomy profile, set up by QUALITEL to promote, in accordance with the European Union's "Taxonomy" regulation, real estate projects with a favorable impact on the environment. This profile should apply to the VIVEST programs in Thionville (57) and Nancy (54), for which significant work has been carried out on mitigating the impact of operations on climate change. Throughout the duration of the experiment, other VIVEST operations could be subject to a Taxonomy profile request.
• Develop a personalized profile, specifically adapted to VIVEST's CSR indicators, combining social value, in the service of quality housing for all and good living together, environmental value guided by sobriety and resilience and economic value in the service of the territories.

Experimenting with the ALEX tool:

In 2024, QUALITEL launched the ALEX service, reinventing the property visit. The principle: have the condition of the house or apartment precisely assessed by an independent and impartial expert. The latter visits the property, analyzes it from every angle, and delivers a comprehensive report to the future buyer within 48 hours, including a summary listing the property's strengths and weaknesses, the work to be planned, an estimate of their cost, the rooms or equipment concerned, their importance, and the level of urgency.

QUALITEL and VIVEST will pilot this service on a social housing scale: VIVEST will use ALEX as part of diagnostics prior to the sale of its existing properties for social home ownership. Around twenty homes are currently involved.

For the lessor, this initiative is part of its approach to securing its sales policy and its quality commitments. For both VIVEST and QUALITEL, it is also a new opportunity to provide first-time buyers in social housing with the same tools as those offered to buyers of private housing to inform and objectively make their choices.

The choice of CLÉA as a Digital Information Notebook:

Created in 2010, CLÉA is QUALITEL's housing information book. Designed and conceived as a health record, it centralizes all essential information about an apartment or house by its successive owners or tenants. Beyond the history, it facilitates home maintenance, energy performance improvements, and the daily use of equipment. To date, CLÉA has already been adopted by more than 250.000 homes in France.

VIVEST will deploy CLÉA across its entire portfolio, with a forecast of 500 homes per year.

[1] The missions of the QUALITEL Group: information for the general public, certification, training, evaluation and expertise