Sustainability and Social Value Strategy

Participating Businesses consider energy, carbon, transport, water, materials, waste, pollution and biodiversity in decisions they can influence.

Purchasing decisions consider quality, safety, legality, value, environmental impact, labour standards, local capability and supply-chain resilience.

Where proportionate and relevant, Participating Businesses support local employment, training, work experience, apprenticeships and development of transferable skills.

Businesses seek to understand local and customer priorities, minimise disruption, communicate respectfully and contribute through relevant, evidence-based activity.

Opportunities and services are designed to be fair and accessible, with barriers identified and addressed where reasonably practicable.

Performance measures are introduced when reliable baselines and proportionate collection methods are available. Measures may include energy and fuel, waste, local spend, training, employment, community activity and customer outcomes.

Until validated baseline information exists, this strategy does not claim a carbon footprint, carbon-reduction percentage, net-zero date, recycling rate or quantified social-value outcome.

The strategy is delivered through efficient operations, responsible materials and waste, ethical and resilient supply chains, fair access to work and skills, community benefit and honest measurement. Each Participating Business selects actions relevant to its scale, geography, contracts and influence rather than claiming every theme for every instruction.

Mobilisation and quotation consider travel, energy, water, waste, material longevity, repair before replacement, local sourcing, accessibility, employment and training opportunities. Procurement avoids criteria that unnecessarily exclude competent SMEs and considers whole-life value alongside price, safety and quality. Customer-specific social-value commitments are defined, costed, owned and evidenced before acceptance.

Evidence may include invoices, waste records, mileage or fuel information, energy data, supplier locations, employment or training records, volunteering approval and customer acceptance. Double counting, unsupported attribution and treating ordinary contract delivery as additional social value are prohibited.

Carbon or environmental reporting states the boundary, period, methodology, estimates, exclusions and whether results are gross or net of offsets. No net-zero, carbon-neutral, local-spend, employment or community-impact claim is published without a baseline and retained evidence.

Annual review considers objectives, completed actions, limitations and priorities. Public reporting separates verified results from ambition and corrects material errors promptly.

Each Participating Business selects objectives relevant to its scale, activities and influence, records supporting evidence and reviews progress at least annually. Public reporting distinguishes verified results from future ambitions.

Approved by David Swaddle, Founder, on 30 August 2026.