COMMENT: In real estate, sustainability is often associated with less; less energy, less carbon, less waste. What happens if we start thinking about sustainability as more? More education, more skills, more opportunities?
At Landsec, we believe the less and the more are inextricably linked. Our environmental sustainability strategy is focused on reducing our impact on the planet. Our social sustainability strategy is focused on delivering more for the communities and people we interact with.
A relatively new concept, social sustainability is evolving at pace to be more strategic and meaningful against a backdrop of a huge shift in the skills required to develop the buildings, spaces and places of the future. Construction methods have evolved with the advancement of technology; ways of working have shifted as the next generation joins the workforce; and the built environment is transforming to meet the changing desires of how people want to interact, work and live.
Increasing equality
It’s vital that finding the people to join us on our journey isn’t limited to the traditional recruitment market. Landsec is committed to delivering £25m of social value by 2025 by increasing equality in the communities we work in – especially for those people we’re less likely to interact with and those who are furthest from employment opportunities.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the work we do with serving prisoners. Across three prisons in the UK, Landsec – along with other industry partners – works with charity Bounce Back to run training academies, which teach vital skills to serving prisoners.
These training centres focus on skills of critical importance to the property industry: aerial window cleaning, scaffolding, painting and decorating and dry lining. Each participant graduates at the end of their course with skills in a trade they didn’t have an opportunity to learn before, and the industry gains deeper bench strength in these areas.
Once they have graduated, we work with Bounce Back and partners right across our supply chain to help find long-term, stable employment for the prisoners at the end of their sentence. From our interactions with men who have gone on to work on our developments, we know what a profound impact this has.
Lack of opportunities
Onu, a recent graduate of the programme, told us: “Basically, as an ex-offender coming out of prison, it’s hard to get a job. People… they don’t want to give you opportunities. When I came out of jail, I got into trouble a couple of times. I got arrested, then I came to Bounce Back and I was on my route to work.
“It’s basically helped me turn my life around. I’ve always got steady income coming in; I don’t need to worry about doing bad things to get money. You have to work to maintain a good life – and crime ain’t the way. I think it is important that more companies should offer job opportunities to ex-offenders because, at the end of the day, we’re all human. I’m proud of myself.”
Five years after we started working with Bounce Back, it’s clear to us that unlocking the potential of serving prisoners through a social sustainability strategy designed to increase the talent, diversity and agility of our industry is win-win.
There’s a wider benefit too. Bounce Back’s stats show that reoffending rates for individuals who have completed training and have progressed to employment are less than 10%. This is against a national reoffending rate of more than 50%. This saves public money, increases productivity and – most importantly – gives people a much-needed second chance.
Edward Dean, sustainability director, Landsec
