Placing ESG at the heart of our strategy
Purdy is part of the Kinovo Group where ESG is placed at the heart of our strategy.
In the last year we have taken action to transform Kinovo into an organisation that places ESG and sustainability at the core of the Group strategy. We are committed to strengthening our contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and reporting on our progress each year. This is a priority because the activities we undertake to maintain a sustainable business support our license to operate in the social and affordable housing sector, and are at the heart of our decision making. The Group’s new identity, and realignment of its purpose, vision and values has provided us with a synergistic anchor point that ties our people in with our client base and our shareholders.
Later this year, we plan to publish our first stand-alone sustainability report which will detail our strategy in more detail, and set goals against which we can measure performance for the future.
Our Communities
Covid-19 hampered our progress somewhat, particularly in terms of delivering a more formal social value programme to our communities.
However, a lot was achieved and the pandemic also shone a light on the culture of our organisation and the caring, positive attributes of our people. Through acts of kindness, our staff supported the elderly, infirm and isolated. During the lock-downs our engineers were often the only human contact tenants would have as we carried out emergency repair and maintenance works. Our mantra became to help where we can, such as doing shopping runs for house-bound clients, being available to chat, providing PPE in the community or donating computers to local schools.
Being on the ground on behalf of local authorities and housing associations, we understand the importance of being part of the community. We also understand the greater impact we can have by coordinating our efforts with our clients and our own supply chain. In the last year we began to reach out to some of our larger clients to become involved in their own social activities, and have also introduced social value information from all new suppliers as part of the bid process.
Our Environment
We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint and supporting our Government’s ambition to reach net-zero by 2050. We have already started investing in the skills to install and maintain energy efficient solutions to support client in their efforts. We also practise what we preach, installing EV chargers around our offices this year, in addition to the solar panels we have in place, and we are currently in the process of installing ground source heat pumps.
Our People
Under the guidance of our HR Director Dawn Kemp, who was appointed shortly before the start of the period, we have seen a transformation to the way our staff are managed, how we recruit talent, ensure career progression and the training we provide. We now have a financial and non-financial rewards based incentive scheme in place to align individual performance with the Group strategy. All this work continued alongside the unexpected activity that was needed around Covid-19 to enable our staff to work from home or safely in the field. IT has played a big part, and has accelerated the direction in which we wanted to take our working practices, so that we have a more agile and workforce.
Later this year we plan to publish our first stand-alone sustainability report which will detail our strategy in more detail, and set goals against which we can measure performance for the future. The report will set out our objectives and activities across our key focus areas:
Our people: providing job opportunities and rewarding careers.
Our environment: reducing carbon emissions, minimising our waste, promoting sustainable transport.
Our communities: delivering social value in the communities where we work.
In the meantime, we are publishing our environmental and carbon data in line with Streamline Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) requirements, and include some highlights from the year.
