DestinationCore | Environmental & Social Impact

Environmental & Social Impact

AWARD WINNING ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT

As part of the Jacob Bailey Group, DestinationCore recognises that we don’t exist in isolation. Our employees depend on our business, and customers, suppliers, and the local community are all affected by our business and what we do. We also have an impact, albeit in a small way, on the environment. So Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for us is about understanding our business’ impact on the wider world and considering how we can use this impact in a positive way.

We are committed to steering our own company, as well as the industry in which we operate, into a sustainable future by reducing the effects of our business and our sector on the planet through environmental and ethical policymaking.

The Jacob Bailey Group commenced its environmental policy making in 2011 and were the first company in Suffolk to attain the Silver Award for the Suffolk Carbon Charter. Furthermore, our Spray it – Save it – Spend it idea clinched runner up spot in a national competition ‘Save the Planet Save the Pounds’ for Climate Week. We have continued to build a ‘green’ company culture ever since.

At DestinationCore, as part of The Jacob Bailey Group, we continually monitor, manage, and minimise our environmental impact and waste. To achieve this, we:
- Assess and regularly re-assess our effects on the environment
- Train employees in environmental policy and issues backed up by our Environmental Handbook
- Promote the Fresh Ways to Work scheme to encourage better business travel planning
- Prevent and/or limit our output of pollution into land, air, and water
- Minimise waste of both energy and materials - 50% of our energy comes from renewable sources and when our current fixed term contract expires, we are committed to switch to 100% renewable sources
- Promote the use of recyclable and renewable materials
- Reduce / offset our carbon footprint
- Minimise business travel, and use public transport as a primary method of travel
- Operate a fully remote working arrangement for all DestinationCore employees.

To enhance environmental awareness, we will strive to constantly inform and motivate employees. Our environmental policy is communicated to all staff via employee inductions and our Company Handbook, Green Policy and Environmental Handbook and is also proactively communicated and made available to all our partners.

JACOB BAILEY GROUP ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVES

Flexible and Remote Working; Jacob Bailey Group personnel enjoy flexible and remote working. The Marketing Manchester project environmental output, delivered by the DestinationCore team, will include 100% remote working

Carbon Footprint Offset; Offset carbon footprint created by any business travel via private transport, via the planting of trees. We consciously use the train to do most of our business travel and over a 12-month period, this equates to approx. 4000 miles of rail travel, which is 0.25 tonnes of CO2e. We offset that using Carbon Footprint Ltd

Cycling to Work; For team members that wish to enjoy the personal company of their colleagues, we operate and encourage a cycle to work scheme. Employee have the opportunity to purchase bikes at a reduced rate via the government backed Cycle to Work Scheme (https://www.bike2workscheme.co.uk/)

Think and Switch and Last Out; Amongst other internal initiatives, this involves a highly visual notices and reminders about good energy management values and behaviours maintaining good communication flow and encourages our team to minimise the impact of our office energy usage on the planet.

Electrical Recycling; All Electrical items are given to PRM Green Technologies for reuse or recycling.

'Bottle for Life' Scheme; All company employees are provided with a reusable drinks bottle.

Better Business Travel; Use trainhugger.com for our train bookings – they plant trees for every journey undertaken by us, in association with the Royal Forestry Society.

Partners; We endeavour to work with supply partners that also share our values and have net zero targets. For example, AWS cloud-based services have a 100% renewable energy by 2025, and certified net-zero by 2040 pledge.

DESTINATIONCORE SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVES

Environmental Planning Tool; We've recently introduced a Sustainability Planning module which can be added to any DestinationCore website. This tool allows users to plan activities based on a number of different eco-friendly criteria helping visitors become more environmentally aware. Impacts are recorded in DestinationCore Insights, our digitally data-driven reporting dashboard which collects destination performance data allowing economic and environmental impact to be benchmarked in real time across the destination industry.

AWS Usage; We exclusively use AWS for hosting and development operations. They have a pledge to be fully renewable by 2025. https://sustainability.aboutamazon.co.uk/environment/the-cloud

SOCIAL COMMITMENTS

As part of The Jacob Bailey Group, DestinationCore take CSR seriously. Our Social Values policies focuses on three core areas, Youth, Charity and looking after our People (but we get involved in other stuff too). Below is a selection of just a few of the initiatives that are an integral part of our business.

CHARITY INITIATIVES

Charity Support & Volunteer Days; The Jacob Bailey Group understand the importance of supporting those less fortunate than us. We look to support small local charities that don’t get the same level of donations as the national charities and instigate company-wide initiatives to raise funds for our charity partners. Since 2018 we have:

YOUTH INITIATIVES

Apprentice & Young Persons Employment Opportunities; Breaking into the tech industry is hard for young developers with no experience. We actively seek to offer opportunities at apprenticeship level and graduate level. Employing a young inexperienced developer, offering them on the job training and a first step on the ladder will always be our preferred employment growth approach. We have developed a partnership with local tech training provider Netmatters. This partnership has allowed us to:

University of Suffolk Support; As a Visiting Fellow, our Director (Shaun Bailey) has contributed to the University of Suffolk’s, MA Marketing course composition and development. We regularly provide lecture speakers to help bring students closer to the real world of data, digital communications and creativity. In addition, the wider team has helped students of The University of Suffolk for many years, plan, market and manage a live business conference attended by hundreds of businesses each year. We then mark the students work with their course tutor that goes towards their final degree result.

Youth Engagement Program; our Youth Engagement Programme reaches out to the, CIM, Otley College, UCS, University of Hertfordshire, Suffolk College and the School for Social Entrepreneurs. We also manage dozens of work experience students throughout the year.

Institute for Data and Marketing; On a national level, our Director (Shaun Bailey) sits on the Qualification Board for Institute of Data and Marketing in a voluntary position to help shape data, digital and marketing qualifications for the industry. He has helped create a national Data and Marketing Youth Programme Initiative to help young talent find placements in the industry and been involved in Young Sparks National Schools Competition for the industry.

PEOPLE INITIATIVES

Mental Health First Aiders; we have two trained Mental Health First Aiders in the business (with more being trained out of our 2023 budget) and have an EAP provided by BUPA for all our people.

Employee Benefits Scheme; we have a whole host of benefits from personal career development and training, to regular social gatherings to encourage that all important human interaction and bonding between the various teams, to extra days off for birthday's. We also run a Rewards and Recognition programme to say thank you when one of our team does something brilliant.

Employee Surveys; We regularly ask our people to complete Staff Surveys so that we can check we’re doing the right things for them, and act on the insight received.

DESTINATIONCORE SPECIFIC INITIATIVES

Accessibility Planning Tool; We've recently introduced an Accessibility Planning module which can be added to any DestinationCore website. This tool allows users to plan activities based on accessibility criteria helping visitors with accessibility needs plan and organise so they can get more out of their visits. Impacts are recorded in DestinationCore Insights, our digitally data-driven reporting dashboard.

DestinationCore Insights; As with the environment, our DestinationCore Insights product (that would form part of the project) intrinsically has a positive social output, aligning with the UK’s Digital Strategy (Unlocking Power of Data) and Town Deals (Department for Levelling Up) to improve digital connectivity to regenerate towns/high streets. Businesses are the lifeblood of community and at the heart of rebuilding local economies. DestinationCore Insights can illustrate connections between online and on-location visitor behaviour, sentiment, footfall, dwell time and activity. Thereby providing evidence-based data that will improve socio-economic regeneration initiatives.