Hungate York
How we went about choosing environmental actions
We looked at our environment, our local community. Working alongside residents and organisations such as the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Friends of St Nick’s we identified area’s and opportunities for improvements. Alongside stakeholders and residents we undertook periods of consultation to ensure it really was the best possible outcome for the local area and provided the maximum benefit.
What we organised and how
During the last 12 months we organised several “community days”, using our staff and local stakeholders and supply chains we engaged them to undertake days at a St Nick’s field to create a “bee bank” providing cover and shelter to bees and help ensure the city centre has a continued bee population. We also worked with local primary schools to produce wonderful art images of the local wildlife, we then placed these images alongside professional photographs and information provide by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust onto plaques which surround our development on the River Foss, providing our residents and future generations with something wonderful to look at, but, also learn from their natural surroundings. Our development has also been continuously improved, starting out hard landscaped during the original master plan we managed to place an extra 66 trees throughout the development, including a green space at its heart which is approx. half a football pitch. We then placed green/Sedam roofs all over the tops of our buildings to help combat Urban Thermal Heat, this affects migrating birds and animals making them think its warmer than it actually is.
Time commitment and any costs involved
We have donated around 500 hours of time during the last 12 months towards our environmental commitment. Cost wise we spent around £3500 on the plaques, by the time the fabrication and design process had been undertaken. On our community days we provide T-shirts, all relevant PPE, lunch as well as materials equating to around £20 per person. The more people that volunteer the more we can spend!
How we engaged colleagues
Lendlease has a brilliant culture of helping one another, most people really buy into the ethos of what we are trying to achieve and why we want to do it. It’s not difficult to get people interested in community days, usually a little round robin email with a calendar invite works a treat. Well that and the promise of a free lunch!
Our top tips in planning, organising, promoting and assessing success
Give your self plenty of time, be flexible in your approach, listen to the experts in their fields. Some of the advice given about our environmental approach has been invaluable and we continue to engage with them throughout the development, almost as a reassurance we are doing the right thing and more importantly why we are doing it.