Social responsibility
Find out how we put people, planet and place at the heart of everything we do as an organisation.
In this section
Co-Ownership is an organisation with a strong sense of social purpose and we are committed to being responsible corporate citizens.
For us, corporate responsibility is about acting responsibly in all that we do and adding value, not only in a commercial sense, but beyond this to support all our stakeholders, including the wider community in which we operate. Responsible behaviour is at the heart of our business and our overall corporate responsibility goal is to develop Co-Ownership as a long term, sustainable business that delivers value to all our stakeholders . We are proud to have held Business in the Community NI’s Silver Level CORE accreditation for a number of years. This is considered to be a prestigious standard for responsible business.
Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aims are ordered along three strands: People, Planet and Place and are well established within the organisation. You can read more about them in our 2023/24 Corporate Social Report.
Our overall approach is based on our corporate values :
- Putting customers first
- Working together
- Doing the right thing
- Evolving and improving
People
In the workplace we support equality of opportunity and diversity, both in our dealings with customers and stakeholders and also across the organisation. For our people, we aim to create a workplace that is inclusive, inspiring and supportive.
We recognise that our staff are the most valuable asset to our business. We support their development to become confident, skilled and knowledgeable partners to our stakeholders, and we do this through investing in training and development, across all departments and skill areas. We provide support for staff wanting to undertake a recognised qualification with financial assistance and time off for study. We recognise the wide range of expertise provided by our staff and ensure they are provided with learning to maintain elements such as CPD. We actively promote the health and wellbeing of our people with a well established Heath and Wellbeing Team who provide wide ranging events and initiatives, support and information.
We recognise that listening to the opinions of our people is vital and that it’s important that everyone is aware of the role they play. We:
- hold regular communications forums with our staff and employee surveys to get feedback on how they are feeling and impact of implemented changes.
- have an Employee Engagement Team who listen to our staff and develop new and evolving ways of working, including a staff led Recognition Scheme.
- are always looking at ways to improve and evolve our business and to attract and retain talented people.
- developed a Values framework to reflect the needs of our future business and to deliver on challenging business objectives.
In 2024 we achieved Investors in People (IiP) Gold accreditation, recognising the significant improvements we have made since our last reaccreditation.
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 2023 we launched our Climate Strategy which sets out our plans to tackle the challenges that climate changes presents to homeowners. With Housing contributing 14% of Northern Ireland’s carbon emissions, Co-Ownership believes that a collaborative approach is needed across Government and the Housing Sector, to ensure a just transition to a new sustainable living model for our society.
Others steps we have taken:
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Internally, we reduce the impact of our operations on the environment through encouraging behaviours and introducing initiatives that minimise waste and maximise efficiency.
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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.
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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.
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We have procured a green energy tariff with our electricity supplier which uses 100% renewable energy with zero emissions, and our office has PIR lighting throughout to reduce our electricity consumption.
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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.
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We participate in the annual Business in the Community Environmental Benchmarking Survey and are thrilled that in December 2024, we achieved a significant milestone by advancing to Silver status. This survey not only enables us to evaluate our environmental performance against industry peers, but also provides valuable insights to identify areas for improvement, driving us toward even greater sustainability.
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We actively try to reduce our paper consumption, and this is achieved through our continued digitisation of processes and in house ‘save paper’ campaigns.
Place
Our focus here is on making a positive impact on the community, which includes charitable support.
Every year the team at Co-Ownership choose a charity, and during 2026/27 we are raising funds for Marie Curie. If you'd like to make a donation to this extremely worthy cause, visit our Just Giving page.
Charitable giving, volunteering and getting involved with our wider community is really important to everyone at Co-Ownership. And while our day-to-day work is to assist people to become homeowners, our team are committed to helping people generally and make a difference. That ethos extends to support for our charity.