Our sustainability journeyso far
Our commitment to delivering sustainable strategies and actions to become an environmentally sustainable organisation is very important to us. With our target of net zero by 2050 we are very serious about our carbon footprint and minimizing our impact on the planet. We know we can’t achieve our net zero targets alone, so we are working with tenants, employees, key partners, and organisations to help drive positive environmental sustainability change. Everything we do is audited through our Environmental Management System (EMS) and accredited through Investors in the Environment (iiE).
We are part way through our sustainability roadmap. Here are some key dates and events from the past and in the future.
We joined NEECCo and declared a climate and ecological emergency through this
In-depth research began, to understand how we could form our environmental sustainability aspirations into a coherent strategy and actions
We appointed our first Sustainability Adviser to boost our productivity on the decarbonisation agenda
As part of the development of Planet A we invited staff members to various workshops to discuss the strategy and related objectives
We applied for Wave 1 of the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to help improve the energy performance of our homes
We undertook a survey to better understand tenant perceptions of climate change and their desires for our emerging Planet A strategy. We used these results to guide strategy development and will revisit tenant engagement with subsequent Customer Voice activities in this area
Our Chief Executive Alan Boddy was invited along to Durham County Council's Conference of Partners where he pledged on our behalf to support action against climate change
A group of involved tenants gathered with the Sustainability Team to shape the Planet A Strategy development. This focus group marked the beginning of our on-going Customer Voice sessions with tenants
iiE is a membership accreditation scheme for organisations to help reduce their impact on the environment and be more sustainable
The aim of the audit was to review our current waste practices and recommend any actions to improve services, save money and where possible, reduce waste across the office site
We will be using the SmartCarbon Calculator tool to measure and quantify our carbon footprint. We can then act upon this data and put actions in place to reduce our organisational carbon emissions
Meetings were held with senior members of staff to help shape and refine the key actions for Planet A
Our dedicated tenants and Sustainability Team met once again to discuss the key objectives and community level actions for Planet A
Want to get involved?
Want to play a larger part in environmental sustainability? Find out how you can get involved to help us reduce emissions and limit our environmental impact.