At Knight Harwood, we don’t just pay lip service to embedding sustainability within the business, we are taking active steps to ensure that our actions speak volumes. Whilst some organisations may consider environmental actions as the be all and end all of ‘sustainability’, we ensure that we reach out to local communities, social enterprises and charities to hopefully make their world a better and easier place.
At Knight Harwood, we don’t just pay lip service to embedding sustainability within the business, we are taking active steps to ensure that our actions speak volumes. Whilst some organisations may consider environmental actions as the be all and end all of ‘sustainability’, we ensure that we reach out to local communities, social enterprises and charities to hopefully make their world a better and easier place.
Knight Harwood Green Team
A mixed-discipline group of Knight Harwood staff from all across the business have been brought together with the sole agenda of improving our environmental performance. The group, aptly called the Green Team, focus on a wide range of topics, centring around the promotion of innovation and creating a mentality change within our organisation to reduce plastic usage, carbon emissions and improve community engagement around this subject.
Sustainable construction
As a company, we embrace sustainable design, construction solutions and approaches. This runs through sustainable construction approaches and building services installations which are often required by our clients and their professional teams to target BREEAM and other sustainability ratings as a statement of their commitment to the environment.
We actively encourage all staff to deliver projects with a sustainable mindset, however we also assign each project a sustainability champion to really drive forward our targets. On our projects, our targets typically include the reporting of data including waste, energy, water and transportation.
Supply chain engagement
Before commencement of work on site, all subcontractor operatives are inducted in relation to site specifics. As well as health and safety, these include the environmental practices and processes Knight Harwood are operating on site and to which they should conform.
All subcontractors on our supply chain database are expected to adhere to environmental best practice and current legislation. Knight Harwood’s standards relating to waste management, waste transfer notes, consignment notes and sustainable sourcing of materials such as timber or veneers is a requirement for all subcontractors.
Working with the community
At Knight Harwood, we live the values and principles that govern the way we operate as an organisation and behave as individuals. We recognise the impacts we make on society, the economy and the planet; and seek to make a positive difference in the places where we operate. Our aim is to be good corporate citizens and support the communities in which we operate. This commitment is defined by our Corporate Social Responsibility Policy.
Local labour initiatives
Our Local Sourcing Policy defines our intention to, where possible, use goods, suppliers and labour which are local to our construction sites. We support local economic regeneration through our procurement processes by considering the following aspects:
- Encouraging local procurement of materials and services where feasible
- Supporting schemes that promote the principles of the Social Value Act 2012
- Working with our supply chain partners and local agencies to find appropriate opportunities for skills, training, work experience and apprenticeships at a local level
- Where possible, using local agencies, labour and workforce; creating a positive impact on local communities and encouraging our supply chain to do so too
