Amey has teamed up with social enterprise Ethical Stationery and a group of South London charities to package and distribute face coverings to its 16,000 employees, including more than 10,000 keyworkers, across the UK.
The participating organisations include Lives not Knives, Croydon Nightwatch and Evolve Housing, all of whom have been enlisted by Ethical Stationery to nominate vulnerable people in the Croydon community who would benefit from being employed to pack and process the face coverings over two days at Old Whitgiftian RFC.
The project brings together social enterprises, charities, and UK manufacturers to demonstrate the power of procurement and the ability of large businesses to have a positive social impact at every step of the supply chain by collaborating with local third sector organisations and small businesses.
Amanda Fisher, Chief Executive Officer at Amey, commented: “Social enterprises are going to be critical in getting local communities back on their feet as the UK emerges from the pandemic and the government looks to build a fairer, more productive Britain. This is why ‘buying social’ is a core part of our social value plan, and why we announced earlier this year that we would be increasing our spend with social enterprises by 60% to £8m in 2020. Our work with Ethical Stationery is an excellent example of this commitment and it shows just how impactful a sustainable procurement strategy can be.”
Bruce Halai-Carter Co-Founder Ethstat Ethical Stationery CIC commented: “The impact this project has had is just mind-blowing. Environmentally we’ve saved 576kg of plasticated card going to landfill, 3,760Kg of CO2 and 15,700 single use wrappers were replaced by biodegradable ones. We’ve raised £3,500 for the NHS, employed 18 homeless and vulnerable adults, supported three amazing charities in Lives Not Knives, Evolve Housing and Nightwatch – for whom we’re also donating 200 masks and encouraged our local community sports club to make a regular donation of food for rough sleepers. This project has been all about maximizing the good and reducing the environmental impact. I love those projects that really go for it rather than settle for a percentage here and there, so I couldn’t be prouder that every single penny has been spent in the UK, every single penny has helped UK communities and every single penny has gone to generating positive social impact. To top it all off, we managed to give all the packers an extra bonus for their hard work through others donating their time, so the most vulnerable received £250 for two days work. Everyone left happy, we’ve had emails and texts asking us when the next event is and we’ve touched people’s hearts, given them hope, and done what we love to do.”
Humayun Kabir, our Croydon Mayor commented: “Ethstat Ethical Stationery CIC are demonstrating the true essence of social enterprise, and all that is great about Croydon. With Croydon being a Social Enterprise Borough, and as Croydon Mayor, I am proud to support this initiative. This work is supporting the homeless, ex-offenders and some of the most vulnerable people in society. At a time when employment is scarce, Ethstat, through Amey PLC, are giving people much-needed funds and community spirit.’
Sarah Jones MP for Croyden commented: “Huge amounts of economic hardship are going to come over the following months and years. We need everybody to be working together as much as possible to do a range of things. One, to make sure people have employment, and two, to make sure the very hardest to help, who maybe can’t get into employment get the help they need. Social enterprises have a really important role, they can innovate, they can do interesting things, they can use the money they make and put it back into the work they’re doing. They can help people get into employment and they can provide services that we need. It’s a really fabulous initiative and a really important piece of work.”
In 2017, Amey joined Social Enterprise UK’s Buy Social Corporate Challenge, which saw it commit to spend £1bn with social enterprises along with group of other high-profile businesses. More recently, Amey has doubled its annual spend with social enterprises to £5m and announced an ambitious four-year spending target with social enterprises of 5% of its total addressable spend, making Amey the first of the UK Government’s strategic suppliers to do so.