We work with many different stakeholders as we run our business. We strive to be open and honest about how we work and to listen and respond to our stakeholders’ views. This dialogue gives us access to new ideas and insights and helps us manage sustainability issues.
We engage with stakeholders as part of doing business and we also carry out a formal materiality assessment.
Our main stakeholders are:
Our customer proposition is closely tied to our purpose and centres on delivering great homes and thriving communities consistently.
We engage directly with customers at our developments, via social media and our customer portal (Touchpoint). We monitor their views through focus groups, independent industry surveys, Trustpilot reviews and post-occupancy research. In the last two years, we have surveyed customers on their attitudes to the environment and carried out customer research on our new house types.
We are training our sales representatives to discuss sustainability issues with customers. This includes training on energy efficiency and training on our approach to nature on our developments.
We engage with local communities at every site, from planning and throughout construction, including through meetings, exhibitions, workshops, newsletters, information boards, social media and our website. Engagement can be both face-to-face and virtual. Engagement helps us create developments that reflect local needs.
We have a consistent and thorough community engagement process, with a framework in place that provides clear procedures for all of our regional business units.
Our Political and Community Engagement Toolkit helps us engage a wide range of stakeholders during the planning process and use research to understand local needs and priorities. Our Community Communication Plan provides a step-by-step framework for our regional businesses to communicate with the local community and prospective buyers throughout the lifecycle of a development. It ensures we take a consistent approach across our sites and helps our teams organise activities and events that foster relationships between the new and existing community.
We are proud of our people and their commitment to the business. We strive to employ the best talent, invest in their development and create inclusive workplaces. We aim to be the employer of choice in our industry and offer attractive remuneration and focus on employee engagement to help us recruit and retain skilled employees.
We engage with our employees and gather feedback through meetings, appraisals, focus groups, employee surveys, our internal magazine and newsletter, Company wide emails, and our national and regional employee forums.
We are engaging our colleagues on our environment strategy and providing training to help them implement our policies through a series of masterclasses during 2021.
Our suppliers and subcontractors play a major role in our business and we collaborate with them on many aspects of sustainability. We choose suppliers carefully, aiming to select partners who share our values and to work with them to achieve our goals. We engage with our subcontractors and suppliers on a wide range of matters and initiatives through meetings, workshops, working groups, engagement sessions and our membership of the Supply Chain Sustainability School.
We have quarterly meetings with all national suppliers in the UK and provide training and support for subcontractors in areas such as health, safety and environment. We work in partnership with suppliers and subcontractors on improving health and safety, product development and more.
We have been identified as a CDP Supplier Engagement Leader with a score of A for our approach to engaging suppliers on climate change.
Group suppliers are required to confirm compliance with our standards via our digital tender system, including in relation to employment standards, modern slavery and the real living wage. Further requirements on climate change, waste, packaging, nature, water and air quality will be added during 2022.
We regularly engage with our shareholders and provide them with timely communications around environmental, social and governance issues, be that through our reporting, participation in industry benchmarks or investor meetings.
We maintain an extremely thorough investor relations programme.
Our Annual Report includes disclosures reflecting the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board recommended disclosures for our sector.
– Constituent of the Dow Jones Sustainability Europe Index
– Included in the S&P Sustainability Yearbook 2022
– Included in the S&P Sustainability Yearbook 2022
– Constituent of the FTSE4Good Index series
– MSCI AA rating
– Sustainalytics ESG Risk Rating of Low
– Member of Next Generation, ranked third out of 27 companies with a score of 74% and a Gold Award (2020: fourth, 69%, Silver). Next Generation is a rigorous and detailed sustainability performance benchmark of UK homebuilders.
– CDP Climate Change A- (2020: B)
– CDP Water B (2020: B)
– CDP Forests B- for timber sourcing (2020: B)
– CDP Supplier Engagement Leader with a score of A for our approach to engaging suppliers on climate change.
We engage with local government across the UK as part of the planning process for our developments. We place significant importance in engaging with local government as it helps us reflect local priorities in our plans.
We engage with local authorities and parish councils and councillors and participate in the development of strategic frameworks, Local Plans and Neighbourhood Plans.
Wherever possible, we engage with planners through pre-application discussions.
We work with central government on issues connected to the UK housing and business agenda. And we use our industry expertise to give central government our views on proposed legislation and policy changes.
We also engage with government agencies such as the Environment Agency and the Highways Agency.
We provide affordable (social) housing on a significant proportion of our developments. We work closely with independent housing organisations that are Registered Providers to ensure that affordable housing is integrated effectively into our developments.
We are members of industry organisations such as the Home Builders Federation (HBF), the National House-Building Council (NHBC), the British Property Federation (BPF) and the Confederation of British Industry.
Members of our senior management team represent the Company on a wide range of industry and other committees and steering groups. Our Chief Executive Jennie Daly will join the Board of the HBF (Home Builders Federation) during 2022.
We partner with NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and expert organisations in areas such as urban design, ecology and innovation to help us create sustainable communities across the UK.
For example, we are partnering with Hedgehog Street and Buglife to help us implement aspects of our environment strategy.
