A clear understanding of sustainability governance is of paramount importance to Urban&Civic.
This helps to increase accountability and transparency and to maintain strong, open-dialogue relationships with trusted partners, local communities and our employees. As always, this approach is based on our values of quality, integrity, passion, partnership and innovation.
A key step in our Sustainability Framework has been to establish a robust governance structure and define responsibilities across core functions to ensure that there is clear ownership of each element. Accountability for our Sustainability Framework sits with the Board, and then flows down through the business, through the Executive Management Committee (EMC) and its members. Reports are submitted to and heard at each Board and EMC meeting and the Framework implemented under the governance of a single EMC member. The Sustainability Working Group at each site feed up through their respective Strategic Development Committees (SDC) providing frequent updates to the EMC.
The Head of Sustainability acts as the champion for sustainability in the business, horizon scanning for the continual improvement we strive for, and as a multi-way liaison interacting between the different levels of the governance structure and monitoring the flow of information across the business. The Head of Sustainability also oversees the independent review of our sustainability objectives and metrics, which sit under the Framework, including reporting and statutory declarations.
The Framework is a living document which works to support our longer-term needs and drivers of national significance so is likely to change and be updated over time. The latest version of our Sustainability Framework can be downloaded here.
