Sustainability Policy

Joint Equity’s Sustainability Targets for this year

  1. Appoint a sustainability champion for each Joint Equity office.
  2. Introduce a sustainable thinking element into all staff induction training.
  3. Commit to an internal sustainability report at the end of each financial year.
  4. Commit to revising these targets in the next financial year.
  5. Add to the corporate policy review plan that each of Joint Equity’s policies should be checked to ensure sustainability principles are integrated appropriately with each policy element.

Social sustainability & Joint Equity

Social sustainability means a number of things to Joint Equity, most importantly:
Service delivery to our Owners & Investors, and our other Partners:

  • Providing quality service
  • Providing real support
  • Providing business excellence
  • Listening to the concerns and suggestions of our Partners

Supporting and valuing our staff:

  • Being a great employer
  • Welcoming suggestions on any aspect of the Company performance and asking for staff opinions and contributions on many significant issues
  • Providing a positive workplace environment

Working with our suppliers:

  • Requesting that our key suppliers develop a sustainability statement
  • Partnering rather than lowest bid procurement
  • Paying all supplier invoices within 14 days
  • Asking our suppliers to help us further our sustainable development goals

Working with our local communities:

  • Supporting local charities and community groups, specifically those related to the issues faced by our key partner groups and their families
  • Working with local schools & businesses
  • Inviting feedback from our local communities and responding to their comments
  • Many of these elements are already part of Joint Equity’s day-to-day operations and detailed in specific corporate policies and the
  • Joint Equity Company Handbook. However, as a people-focused business social sustainability is not an area that is ever considered ‘done and finished’ by Joint Equity, so we will continue to monitor our performance in this area and revise the appropriate policies regularly.

Economic sustainability & Joint Equity

Economic sustainability is not only expressed through bottom-line profits, it is also about financial longevity and consistency. Key elements include:

  • Developing long term profits for the business
  • Ensuring ‘value for money’ for us, our Partners and our suppliers
  • Improving the efficiency of Joint Equity’s resource usage
  • Balancing costs in use (running costs) with capital costs in procurement decision-making

Environmental sustainability & Joint Equity

For Joint Equity, environmental sustainability is about minimising our environmental impacts through good resource efficiency and stewardship, and improving our local environments where the opportunity exists.

Our key targets for Environmental sustainability are:

  • Minimising our use of resources, utilising the ‘Reduce, Re-use and Recycle’ philosophy and consideration of the environment when procuring any service or product.
  • The safe disposal of waste in accordance with all relevant legislation.
  • Minimising energy waste in all offices by developing staff awareness and through the use of energy-efficient heating, air conditioning, lighting and office equipment.
  • Reducing unnecessary travel by private transport, encouraging the use of public transport, and where possible exploring and increasing flexible working.

What does sustainability mean for Joint Equity?

For Joint Equity, sustainability is about providing the best level of support for our Owners and Investors, whilst balancing environmental and social responsibility with the requirement to deliver business profits.

The objectives of the policy

The objectives of this sustainability policy are:

  • to define the meaning of sustainability for Joint Equity;
  • to provide perspective and guidance for the Joint Equity management team;
  • to guide Joint Equity staff with regard to sustainability in their day-to-day actions; and,
  • to demonstrate commitment to sustainable development to our Partners, suppliers, and local communities.