St Martins acknowledges the connection between the climate and other environmental crises and the threat of current and future homelessness, disease, food, and services shortages, and poverty for millions of people around the world, as well as the major damage being caused to our natural eco-systems.
We have taken a huge step in improving how we care for our environment. We have formed an environmental group consisting of team members from across the organisation who meet quarterly. The group is proactive in ensuring that we are doing our best for the environment, resulting in numerous actions and projects that have led us to reduce our carbon footprint.
We conducted a comprehensive audit of all properties that we own and rent, as well as team members’ commuting habits, to identify our carbon footprint.
We have shifted 90% of our utilities to suppliers who provide green energy. Our main provider, SSE, generates 100% of its renewable electricity from its own UK hydro plants and wind farms.
We ensure that contractors have their own environmental strategy: We choose external providers who are also committed to helping the UK reach net zero. For instance, we rely on a provider who collects our unusable donations and recycles them into other products.
We provide information to residents to improve energy usage: We encourage our team to promote energy-saving habits among residents, such as turning off lights when not in use and adjusting heating settings.
We commit to reporting annually in the following areas by 2026:
- Energy carbon footprint
- Electricity
- Water
- Transport fuel
- Gas
- Total waste production
- % of waste recycled
- Total paper consumption
- % Recycled paper
- % Renewable energy used