What We Believe — And Why We Published It
We just published our values and principles at neighbourwood.ie/what-we-believe. Six commitments, each with a concrete “what this means in practice” section and a binding promise we’re willing to be judged by.
This is about why we did it — and why we think it matters.
The Trust Problem
Here’s the thing about building something new: nobody has to believe you.
We’re asking home buyers to pay an annual fee linked to a Woodland Bank they can’t see from their front window. We’re asking investors to fund a model that hasn’t been built yet. We’re asking councils to approve a development type they’ve never encountered. We’re asking Ireland to welcome two Americans who showed up with a business plan and a conviction that housing and nature can work together.
Every one of those asks requires trust. And trust, in our experience, comes from three places: track record, transparency, and skin in the game.
We have a track record — thirty years of building organisations in climate and sustainability, from LACI to the Net Zero Accelerator to USGBC-California. We have skin in the game — over €200,000 in personal capital, our family’s relocation from Los Angeles to Europe, and the commitment to purchase a home in our own pilot community at full market rate. But track record and skin in the game are table stakes. They tell you we’re serious. They don’t tell you what we’ll do when things get hard.
That’s what values are for.
Why Written Values Matter
I’ve been around enough organisations to know that values on a wall are meaningless if they don’t change how you make decisions. “Integrity” as a bullet point on a website has never stopped anyone from cutting corners.
So we did something a little different. Each of our six values comes with specific commitments — things we will never do, lines we will not cross, standards we will hold regardless of pressure. Not aspirations. Constraints.
For example: “We will never build exclusively for the premium market. If the model can’t eventually deliver affordability, it has failed — regardless of profitability.” That’s not a slogan. It’s a decision rule. When someone offers us a deal that optimises for margin at the expense of accessibility, we have a written answer.
Or: “We will never sell, develop, or clearcut Woodland Bank land.” The Woodland Bank is held in perpetuity by the NeighbourWood Stewardship Trust with an irrevocable asset lock. But legal structures are only as strong as the people behind them. Publishing our commitment makes it public, accountable, and hard to walk away from.
The Six Values
I won’t repeat the full text here — you can read it all at neighbourwood.ie/what-we-believe — but here’s the backbone:
Housing is a human right. My life partner and co-founder Esther knows this personally. Our financial model is designed so that environmental credit revenue flows toward making homes more affordable over time.
Build the thing you needed. We will purchase a home in our first community. We will pay the same fees. We will raise our family there. Every design decision is tested against one question: would this be good enough for our own kids?
The land is not a resource — it’s a relationship. We restore native woodland to ecological best practice, not commercial forestry. The economic value serves the ecological commitment, not the other way around.
Solutions, not enemies. We don’t need a villain. Everyone working on the housing and climate crises — however differently from us — is an ally.
Guests who are building a home. We are Americans in Ireland. We are acutely aware of how much we don’t know. When the model and the place are in tension, the place wins.
Ethical wealth is not a contradiction. We want to build wealth — and we refuse to apologise for that. But we insist it happen without exploitation. Our model generates three revenue engines so that financial success and environmental impact scale together, not in opposition.
The Dinner Table Test
We use what we call the dinner table test: before we make any significant decision, we ask whether we could explain it honestly to our children, to our first home buyer, and to the communities we serve. If the answer requires hedging or rationalisation, that’s a signal worth paying attention to.
This isn’t a corporate governance framework. It’s a habit. And it’s one we think more companies — especially those asking for public trust — could adopt.
What Transparency Actually Looks Like
Publishing values is a start. But transparency is a practice, not a document. Here’s what it will look like for us going forward:
Open cost structures. We will publish how our homes are priced and where the money goes. The three-tier fee structure — estate management, woodland stewardship, and energy infrastructure — is designed to be open and legible, not hidden in the fine print.
Honest timelines. We’re a young company. The pilot hasn’t been built yet. The Woodland Bank hasn’t been established yet. You’ll notice we use future tense throughout our materials for things that haven’t happened — because claiming credit for uncommitted work is the fastest way to erode trust.
Public accountability. We will make mistakes. When we do, we’ll own them and fix them publicly. Not because we enjoy it, but because a company that hides its failures can’t be trusted with its successes.
Verified impact. Every Woodland Bank will be subject to third-party ecological audit. Carbon sequestration and biodiversity outcomes will be documented and linked to individual homes. We’re not asking anyone to take our word for it.
An Invitation to Hold Us Accountable
We published our values because we want to be held to them. Not by a compliance team or a board of directors — by you. The people who will buy our homes, invest in our company, partner with us, or simply watch from a distance to see if this works.
Bookmark the page. Come back in a year. Come back in five. Ask us how we’re doing against each commitment. If the answer is “we fell short,” we owe you the honest explanation of why and what we’re doing about it.
We believe housing and nature shouldn’t battle each other. We believe you can build a profitable company that makes the world better. And we believe that saying so publicly — with specific, binding commitments — is the minimum standard for earning the trust we’re asking for.
Ten homes. One hectare. And a set of values we intend to live by.
Neal Anderson is CEO and Co-Founder of NeighbourWood Communities, a climate infrastructure platform building net-zero woodland communities in Ireland. Read our full values and principles at neighbourwood.ie/what-we-believe.
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