Sustainability isn’t a one-size-fits-all concept for businesses. For some, it’s about drastically cutting carbon to boost operational efficiency. For others, it’s about robust governance and transparent reporting, and for others, its about supporting local people and developed a deeper social responsibility.
Whatever sustainability means to you, keeping up to speed with the fast changing world of sustainability and ESG is key to driving forward change.
For over 40 years, we’ve been helping businesses take practical action to meet their sustainability goals across all these vital aspects. Groundwork was established in 1981 as a radical experiment: to bring together communities, businesses, and government to improve quality of life and create a future where people, places, and nature can thrive.
Drawing on decades of expertise from our community work, nature specialists, and sustainability consultants, we provide tailored support and guidance to businesses on our Sustainable Business Membership scheme. This enables members to approach sustainability holistically, no matter their expertise, with an expert partner as an extended member of the team.
Read on to find out more about who the types of team at Groundwork who are on hand to support our Sustainable Business Members.
Your Extended Sustainability Team
By joining our Sustainable Business Membership, you’re effectively recruiting an extended network of experts to support your journey to sustainability. Here’s who you might be engaging with:
Sustainability Consultants
Whether you’re looking to calculate your carbon footprint, create a strategy aligned with climate science, or train and upskill your staff to get company-wide buy-in for your initiatives, our consultants are well-placed to guide you.
Throughout the membership, our consultants are involved in the assessment process, supporting the development of a tailored action plan to keep your actions clear and drive continual improvement. They also host regular webinars and workshops, designed around our members’ support requirements, to increase awareness, simplify complex topics, and empower you with the skills to drive your actions forward. Additionally, the membership provides access to a free monthly drop-in session where you can get support for any challenges along the way.
Community Leads
With established relationships in communities dating back to the early 80s, we deeply understand local people and grass roots community groups ambitions and needs. Our commitment to working in areas of need enables us to provide suitable support which empowers communities to take practical action against pressing environmental, social, and economic challenges. We are very much led by our communities’ needs, responding to their unique situations.
It will come as no surprise that community groups are always in need of additional resources. The Sustainable Business Membership creates a great opportunity to connect businesses keen to support the communities they operate within, cultivating mutually beneficial relationships. Businesses can improve their social contributions, resulting in a more impactful outcome for the people in their surrounding community.
We often contact members with opportunities to join community projects, helping you deliver CSR initiatives and establish connections with local groups. By understanding your business, we can identify resources you may have that a community needs and bridge those gaps. Examples include members providing old pallets to help build outdoor planters and furniture, or us identifying a business that could remove a specific harmful substance cost-free for a community group. While these may seem like small acts of service, they can make a huge difference to groups with limited funds and resources.
Employment Specialists
While employment may not be the first thing that springs to mind when you consider sustainability, it’s an important piece of the puzzle for a sustainable future for businesses and their surrounding communities. Our assessment process incorporates these considerations, looking not only at how you support your employees internally but also how your organisation can support people in your community to improve their life chances and pursue fulfilling, future-proof careers.
At Groundwork, we deliver a range of employment programmes designed to support marginalised or at-risk individuals. These programmes are always in need of business partners to support participants on their journey into meaningful employment. We connect our members as employment partners to help our learners build confidence and gain insights into the real-life working world through providing mock interviews, industry talks, site tours, and work experience. We also find mutually beneficial outcomes, identifying areas where your business struggles to recruit and then upskilling our learners to transition them into these roles. This results in them gaining employment and your business filling vital positions.
Landscape Architects & Nature Specialists
Whilst most have a focus on the climate crisis, not everyone considers the corresponding nature crisis. These crises cannot be combated without equal consideration to both. While this doesn’t always seem like an everyday business conversation, nature poses a significant risk to businesses and their supply chains.
Our assessment focuses on how your organisation has contributed to enhancing nature and biodiversity. We provide expert guidance from our landscape architects who have developed a biodiversity business toolkit, offering insights and inspiration for how you can integrate nature on-site and adapt to the changing climate through nature-based solutions.
Conclusion
We recognise that every business is unique, and so is their journey. As with our approach to communities, our membership support and learning are very much led by our members’ ambitions and needs. We tailor the content we deliver based on their feedback and are constantly striving for continual improvement in this fast-evolving and complex topic. Ultimately, we aim to translate these challenges into simple, actionable steps, helping you stay on track, continually improving with the comfort of knowing you have a trusted partner and personal cheerleader every step of the way!
Ready to make a tangible impact and build a more sustainable future for your business and community? Join our Sustainable Business Membership today and gain access to unparalleled expertise and support.