Purpose and Scope
Armstrong Watson strives to be a responsible business in all aspects of its operations and activities. We recognise, as part of our business strategy, the need to have a clearly defined approach in relation to our impact on climate change, local communities and the working environment in which we operate. We have brought together a series of operating guidelines and commitments under the heading of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to sharpen our focus.
We are committed to making a difference to the lives of our clients, their families and communities. Our corporate social responsibility is underpinned by our core values; Passion, Trust, Humanity and Honesty.
We discuss this policy at our corporate welcome day which all new colleagues participate in and report to our board members on actions.
Our Commitments
Environment
We are dedicated to minimising the environmental impact of our business and encourage our colleagues, suppliers and clients to do likewise. As part of our ongoing commitment to this, we concentrate on the key areas where our business has the greatest impact upon our environment:
Our colleagues are encouraged to car share where possible or use public transport to help reduce this. Video and telephone conference facilities are available across the firm and colleagues are encouraged to manage their diaries to plan visits to reduce travel. Colleagues are actively encouraged to understand their individual environmental footprint as well as that of the company and continue to measure environmental impact to understand opportunities for improvement. We also offer hybrid and electric cars as part of our company vehicle scheme.
We appreciate that with such a wide geographical spread of offices throughout the Yorkshire, Northumberland, Cumbria, and Glasgow, we need to make a greater effort to reduce our carbon footprint.
In 2018 we gave our senior team Skype functionality. Teleconferencing facilities have been available for some time across our offices.
Our commitment is to reduce, reuse and recycle. Each office recycles paper and card, toners, light bulbs, batteries, cans, plastic and glass. Old office and IT equipment is reused elsewhere in the business or donated to charities.
We no longer provide single use carrier bags to clients.
We aim for a paper free office culture where possible, reducing letters and paper correspondence where possible. Where paperwork is required, we use 100% recycled paper for printing, copying and letters. All paper that is shredded is recycled.
We strive to use recycled materials in our marketing publications. Our provider of printed materials commitment to the environment is listed below.
https://www.heatons.net/environmental-policy.aspx?masterpage=OfficeProducts
Colleagues are encouraged to make use of electronic communications in the form of email and scanning and fully utilise the company intranet where possible.
We encourage colleague to use reusable envelopes for all internal post.
Water hippos have been installed across the company which save one litre of water per toilet flush. Regular checks are done across each office to monitor for leaks. Dishwashers, hand dryers and other water saving, more energy efficient appliances have been installed where possible.
Our monitors and printers are set to enter into sleep mode when not in use, which is more energy efficient than switching off equipment every evening.
Air conditioning units are only use when required and office temperatures are regulated and reduced outside of working hours. We continue to consider a reduction in our energy consumption as we update or change our office locations.
Community
Colleagues are involved with a number of local charities, youth programmes and schools throughout the regions in which we operate. We proactively build and maintain these relationships providing careers advice and attending recruitment fairs. Our aim is to recruit local talent and invest in their development where possible. In addition, we sponsor a wide range of activities in the community. These range from sponsorship of individual colleagues, to sponsorship of local events – sporting, county shows, music, and awards.
We currently sponsor Carlisle Youth Zone Get a Future programme, showing our support to young people.
Our colleagues can nominate their chosen charity each month to receive £250. Information on these activities is reported on the company intranet. Colleagues are encouraged to be active in the community in their own right.
We endeavour to support our local charities by donating our time, in addition to financial contributions.
Corporate Compliance
Our approach to corporate compliance ensures that we continually assess our delivery against our compliance requirements to ensure that we are doing what we should be doing, at the right time.
People
We take pride in recruiting the best people to deliver the best results to our clients. We recognise that in order to recruit and retain the best we need to create an engaging environment. In many of our offices we have been part of the community for many years, and seek to support our local communities. Our colleagues regularly get involved in local events to support good causes, a number of our colleagues involved in sponsored runs or walks and we regularly support charity bake sales. We support our people to get involved in charity events, via our Charity of the Month programme where we provide £250.00 to supplement colleagues fundraising efforts.
For the last two years, colleagues across our offices have been involved in designing and delivering an engagement calendar including charitable events across office.
Document Management
Owner Chief Executive
Department Senior Leadership Team
Effective Date May 2019
