Many of our charity partners are exploring ways they can increase their energy efficiency, helping them to become a more environmentally friendly organisation, as well as saving money on energy bills.
Presenting environmental policies can also form an important aspect of the submissions needed for grant and funding applications by charities. Through its Community Partnership with Berkeley Capital, the St Giles Trust approached the specialist sustainability team to review and develop its policies, helping to make St Giles a more energy efficient organisation.
Since the start of the partnership in 2022, Berkeley Capital has raised more than £277,000 through a range of fundraising events and payroll giving. The money raised goes towards funding the SOS and SOS+ project delivery in Newham and Southwark, helping to educate young people on the realities, dangers and consequences of involvement in gangs and knife crime.
Berkeley Capital Sustainability Managers Victoria Chater-Lea and Annabelle Bloch joined St Giles last year for an initial scoping meeting, sensitively gaining understanding of the project parameters. They wanted to understand where St Giles is on its sustainability journey, and any budget constraints, to make sure their advice would be realistic and achievable for the charity. This ensured that the collaborative work remained relevant, realistic and most importantly, achievable.
Reflecting on her desire to get involved, Victoria comments:
“Volunteering in my professional capacity for St Giles to review its policies was a great experience, and a great way to give back. It’s fantastic to advise the St Giles Trust charity on how it can operate more sustainably, which will hopefully help to win extra funding so it can continue to provide support for children, women and those who need it the most.”
St Giles identified that it needed support with reviewing policies, understanding where improvements can be made, and setting effective sustainability targets for its operations - both in properties that they own, and those they rent.
From the initial meeting, Annabelle and Victoria were able to give recommendations on how to approach the task of policy review and highlight the importance of investing in the collection of baseline data so that outcomes are measurable and meaningful.
Following this, they reviewed individual policies in depth, making recommendations for each aspect of the policies. Victoria then discussed these with the team at St Giles to ensure they felt connected to the suggestions being made.
Highlighting the impact of this skills-sharing project, Kay Andrews, Support Service Manager
at St Giles notes:
“We are so grateful for Annabelle and Victoria dedicating their time to help us develop our environmental policies at St Giles. Their expertise and knowledge have been invaluable in helping us think about how we can enhance current policies, whilst also demonstrating elements that were missing so that we can become more sustainable as an organisation in the future.”
Annabelle reflects:
“It was really great to be able to work with St Giles Trust and use my skills in a different way to my day-to-day role to help the charity review and update its sustainability policies. I look forward to seeing how St Giles Trust progress and collaborate again in the future.”
Sharing skills is an incredible way to make a tangible and lasting difference to our Berkeley Foundation partner charities. It also cements the deepening impact of building open and trusting relations, which is a key driver for the Foundation’s partnerships.
If you are a Berkeley colleague who is interested in future opportunities, or one of our charity partners who could benefit from skills sharing, please get in touch with Gemma Powell, Engagement Manager at Berkeley Foundation.