We are committed to giving back to the communities we operate in and are engaged with a number of projects and charities at a local level across every business. These include choosing initiatives which reflect the needs of the communities in which we and our people live and work.
We have provided ongoing support throughout the year to St. Teresa’s Hospice, who provide palliative and end-of-life care and support in South Durham & North Yorkshire. This includes providing the free use of two vans. Blakedale became a member of Greener Highways last year whose aims are to aid with education and the implementation of sustainable initiatives, products, services and operations across the highways sector. As an active member, Blakedale sponsor a stretch of a busy local road where they carry out regular litter picking duties.
Redde Northgate is proud to be a board member of Darlington Cares, a local initiative dedicated to improving the community. Our commitment to this initiative was honoured in November when we won the Darlington Cares Business Contribution to the Community award.
Playground Project at The Coleridge Centre, Skerne Park
We worked closely with the MP for Darlington to lend our support to the following initiative
Having supported earlier projects, the team at Redde Northgate are once again delighted to support the build of the new play area in Skerne Park. Many of our team live and work around Darlington and this is a great way for us to give back to our local community. Projects like this make such a difference and seeing the joy when children first see their new space always inspires us to do more.
Martin Ward
CEO
Community investment and volunteering policy
As a responsible and sustainable company, we are committed to investing in people and communities. As part of this wider commitment, we encourage our people to donate time and skills during work hours to tackle social and environmental issues and deliver a positive community impact.
Whilst we encourage volunteering in the Company, it’s important that we develop a strategic approach to community investment with our volunteering programme being a key delivery mechanism for this investment strategy. In FY2024 we will develop and deploy a community investment and volunteering policy structured around ‘Business in the Communities’ – five key principles of Community Investment:
- Identify the social issues that are most relevant to our business and most pressing to the communities we work with.
- Work in partnership with our communities leveraging our combined expertise for mutual benefit.
- Plan and manage our activity using the most appropriate resources to deliver against our commitments.
- Inspire and engage our people, customers and suppliers to support our activity and get involved.
- Measure and evaluate the difference that our activity has in the community and on our business.
Case study: 2,000 trees planted
To commemorate the International Day of Forests, celebrated every 21 March, Northgate joined Bosquia Nature to plant during this March more than 1,000 native trees, including ash, birch, laurel, oak and walnut trees in key areas of Gijón and Bilbao. In total, Northgate has planted 2,000 trees in four forests throughout the national territory, adding the two new plantations to those already carried out in Madrid and Girona.
At Northgate we seek to minimise the environmental impact of our activity, and Northgate forests allow us to contribute to this with a direct benefit for the environment.
Aurora Asensio
Marketing Manager of Northgate Spain