Planet

Our aim is not only to embed environmentally ethical behaviour into our culture and workforce, but also to educate our customers on reducing their environmental impact.

In June 2023 we launched our Climate Strategy which sets out our plans to tackle the challenges climate changes presents to its homeowners. With Housing contributing 14% of Northern Ireland’s carbon emissions, Co-Ownership believes that a collaborative approach is needed across the Government and the Housing Sector to ensure a just transition to a new sustainable living model for our society. This report sets out the initial aim and approach it has adopted, to view the full report click here.

Others steps we have taken:

• Internally, we reduce the impact of our operations on the environment through encouraging behaviours and introducing initiatives that minimise waste and maximise efficiency.
• We encourage staff to minimise their carbon footprint through efficient travel. We have participated in Bus & Train Week, an initiative encouraging people to leave the car at home and travel by public transport instead. In 2017, Co-Ownership was recognised as ‘Public Sector Champion’ for its promotion of this initiative.
• Over the pandemic the majority of our staff worked from home which naturally reduced our carbon footprint, and we have since adopted a hybrid working policy which will continue to see reduced transport to the office We have further reduced travel by our business development team who have now embraced the use of technology to attend meetings and seminars. Board and Committee meetings are also conducted on a hybrid basis, again reducing the need for travel to the office.
• We have procured a green energy tariff with our electricity supplier which uses 100% renewable energy with zero emissions.
• Our office premises have PIR lighting throughout to reduce our electricity consumption and built-in cycle racks to encourage staff to cycle to work.
• We have refreshed our Environmental Policy statement which sets out our environmental aims and how we will achieve these. The policy statement publicly demonstrates our ongoing commitment to being an environmentally responsible business. You can view our Environment Policy Statement by clicking here.
• We take part annually in the Business in the Community Environmental Benchmarking Survey and have attained bronze status. Participation in the survey allows us to look at our environmental performance against our sector peers and consider ways in which we can improve our performance.
• We actively try to reduce our paper consumption, and this is achieved through our continued digitisation of processes and in house ‘save paper’ campaigns.