Sustainability
At Ashdown Phillips & Partners, sustainability is at the core of our business. We are Planet Mark Accredited, Living Wage Accredited and members of the Better Buildings Partnership. Our brilliant teams have won numerous sustainability awards which include: Green Apple, SCEPTRE and CSR Awards; this recognition truly showcases our commitment to making our planet a better place for generations to come.
Gary Metcalf, Senior Associate Director and Head of ESG & Development leads our internal team who focus on five key areas across our business:
Charity & Community
We encourage our staff to support charitable causes and their local communities. At the buildings we manage, we encourage our teams to offer vacant space to charity and community groups (subject to client approval and as applicable), to support activities and events on social media and to work with our clients and teams to measure social value across portfolios.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
At Ashdown Phillips we respect and celebrate the diversity of our people. We understand that with diversity comes new ideas, different ways of thinking and positive attitudes. By embracing all that our community brings, we grow confidence in individuals, which in turn delivers real business benefits. This is not just a policy; it is part of our culture.
Health & Wellbeing
Our team is important to us so we are committed to working with our employees and occupiers to promote and protect their health & wellbeing. As a company, we have pledged to promote five simple things we can do as part of our daily life at work as well as at home to build resilience and boost our wellbeing: Be Active, Keep Learning, Give, Connect and Take Notice.
As part of our health & wellbeing pledge, we have launched our Mental Health First Aid and Mental Health Ambassador programme. Taking care of our mental health both in and out of the workplace is an increasingly important issue, that's why we have decided to launch this initiative designed to promote staff wellbeing and to make our workplace a happier, healthier and a more productive place to be. Our Mental Health Ambassadors are there to listen and offer support in a non-judgemental and confidential capacity.Environmental Impact
Our main goal will focus on the reduction of consumption, be that energy, water or waste. We carry out environmental impact assessments on properties either onsite or virtually to help analyse current data and look for ways to achieve improved results. This coincides with the data collation team by looking at trends and actioning recommendations where necessary. We also work on ways to ensure we are aligned to the sustainability actions and targets of our clients and service partners. To achieve this, we actively engage with our clients and partners to understand their requirements such as NetZero or achieving accreditation.
Data Collation and Analysis
Our goals are to collate meaningful and accurate sustainability data across all of our managed portfolio that can be used to identify trends, celebrate successes and respond to opportunities. To have a consistent platform for data capture that reduces the need for duplication of work and a need for multiple systems or platforms and to engage with occupiers to obtain their utilities consumption and waste data so we can support them with their own environmental impact.
Living Wage Accreditation
We are proud to have been recognised for our commitment to the Living Wage and we are delighted to be a Recognised Service Provider for the third year running. We believe in paying a fair wage to our staff, who carry out vital work on behalf of many organisations, and therefore always provide a Living Wage costed bid to our clients through the tendering processes. The Real Living Wage is an independently calculated, voluntary rate of pay that is based on the cost of living. It is higher than the government’s minimum and thousands of companies choose to pay these rates to their staff. The UK rate is currently £10.90, with a higher rate of £11.95 in London, reflecting the higher cost of living in the capital (correct as of 22nd September 2022).
Better Buildings Partnership
We are members of the Better Buildings Partnership's Managing Agents Partnership which is a collaboration of the UK’s leading property managers, responsible for over 30,000 assets in the UK who are committed to improving sustainability across commercial real estate management. We have worked with some of our clients so they can also become members under the Better Buildings Property Owners Partnership to create a joint best practice approach and, Gary also sits on the Better Buildings Partnership board. The Better Buildings Partnership gives a platform to share ideas around sustainable property management so some of our in-house experts join focus groups on a variety of topics such as Net Zero, GRESB and Building Innovation and Technology to support our commitment to sustainability.
Green Apples
The Green Apple Environment Awards reward and promote environmental best practice around the world. Our teams have been busy putting exciting initiatives in place which have helped to reduce the environmental impact of their sites and to build a culture of sustainability in the everyday running of their buildings.