Our Sustainability Report
2021
A message from Mark Granger
As a property consultancy, we sell, let and manage our clients land and building assets. But as a firm, we must also create value that transcends our roles. That value is reflected through the means by which we conduct business, how we engage with all of our stakeholders and how we act in our communities.
“ESG has never been more important to our company than it is at present.”
This Sustainability report demonstrates how in 2021 we have integrated environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into the way we work across our business. This report covers all of our operations and firm-wide activities, as well as to the professional services delivered by all our people, and consultants across our service lines.
While ESG has been a key component of our business operations since the outset, given the current climate crises, we recognize that ESG has never been more important to our company than it is at present.
Since 1855 our people have worked with and within the natural environment, and as a firm we have always committed to creating more sustainable outcomes for the property and landowners that we have served and within the communities that we work. Through our ESG policy and our annual scorecard this commitment will continue.
The implementation of a robust firm-wide ESG program, touching on the five key pillars of community, our work, our people, the charitable activity we undertake and the resources that we use use means that the performance of our teams against our ESG objectives has been emdedded in our firm like never before.
Our industry has a role to help deliver value and positive outcomes for the environment, society and the economy. For Carter Jonas, that means having a positive legacy in the communities in which we work, both directly through our corporate activities, and the influence we have when advising our clients and working with stakeholders.
This report celebrates the effort we are making to improve the communities where we live and work and I look forward to reporting on additional industry-leading achievements in the years to come.
I am, I think rightly as this report demonstrates, proud of the efforts being made across Carter Jonas to minimize the negative impact we, and our clients, have on the environment whilst maximizing the positive impacts we have on the communities in which we work.
"Our industry has a role to help deliver value and positive outcomes for the environment, society and the economy"
Mark Granger Chief Executive Officer
Our ESG Approach
Our ESG approach has always been and always will be about performance, not policy.
The policy we adopt is important, it sets the guidance for how we want to work and crystalises our ambitions for ESG. But our performance against our objectives is what counts.
The framework for ESG that we have adopted doesn’t stop at intentions. Through our balanced scrorecard we set clear objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) through which we can see the progress we are making and management can spot where more efforts are required. Through a Red, Amber, Green (RAG) management dashboard our teams are able to quickly see areas that need attention and respond.
Our Annual Scorecard has ensured that a balanced approach has been taken, with KPI’s across each of our Sustainability Pillars
Balance Scorecard 2022
Balance Scorecard 2021
This report covers our performance for the 2021 calendar year. The 2021 scorecard is included in full in the appendix of this report.
Throughout the year the firm-wide sustainability group, chaired by our Head of Sustainability, met to check our progress against each objective and wherever possible used objective measures of performance against each KPI.
"Through our balanced scrorecard we set clear objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) through which we can see the progress we are making"
Our sustainability pillars
Our sustainability strategy and the objectives we set for ourselves are structured into five key areas of focus:
Our community
Our Work
Our People
Our Resources
Our Charitable Activity
We strongly believe it is at a local level where we can make the greatest impact on communities and create additional social value. Our work in this area takes many forms from sponsorship and pro bono work to volunteering.
We understand that we have a responsibility through our best practice advice and thought leadership to amplify the positive impact we have on the environmental agenda by improving the sustainability performance and outcomes of our clients property interests.
Our people are the heart of our business. A happy, healthy, supportive workplace and a diverse and inclusive team are better for business and better for the communities that the built environment serves.
Carter Jonas has worked closely with the natural environment for hundreds of years and we want to minimise any adverse impact our business activities have. This means looking at everything from reducing the energy consumption in our offices, the amount of paper and water we use to our carbon footprint from business travel.
Through our charity work we have helped important causes achieve life-changing outcomes. We want to ensure that this work continues and as we grow as a firm the contribution we make also grows.
Our Community
As part of our community work, we also want to make property careers accessible to people from a wide range of backgrounds. In addition to raising awareness of the opportunities, we also help young people from all backgrounds take the first steps into a property career whether that is through education and learning or apprenticeships, after all if those working in property reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, it can only lead to a better built environment and better outcomes for all.
"we also help young people from all backgrounds take the first steps into a property career"
Annual Target: Include into ADP system so that days can be better recorded
Actual YTD Progress: Complete
Status:
Annual Target: 100 days in Year 1 (2021/2022) i.e 25 days per quarter
Actual YTD Progress: 15
Annual Target: Identify 4 new initiatives annually and establish a method for recording value of support and sponsorship of local community organisations (e.g. schools)
Actual YTD Progress: 2020-21 Donations = £101,282 Local Sponsorship = £22,402 Total £123,683
Staff volunteering days
Commentary from our Sustainability Group:
For 2021 we knew that integrating ‘volunteering days’ into our HR platform would be an important part of us managing the impact we have on the communities in which we work. We know that our people give generously of their time and expertise. But until this integration was made this time was not recorded in any reliable way. By working with our software supplier (ADP) we were able to adapt our software platform to allow our people to allocate days to volunteering, an important step for encouraging more of our people to give their time to good causes.
The number of volunteering days recorded on our system in 2021 is disappointing. There are two contributing factors to this poor performance. The first is that the functionality to record days came part way through the year. Whilst we know that volunteering days were given in the first part of the year they were not formally recorded and so we haven’t included them. Secondly we are aware that even with the functionality in place some members of our teams gave their time in smaller blocks, helping for 1 or 2 hours alongside their normal work day for example. For 2022 we will adopt an enhanced methodology for capturing this volunteering time. For 2022 we will also be encouraging our teams to give more of their time and have recently announced that each of our people can take 2 paid days for volunteering. This was recently publicized by our Chief Executive and will continue to be promoted and our teams encouraged to use their volunteering days to help good causes.
Spotlight:
Royal Voluntary Service
The Royal Voluntary Service is a charity, through which thousands of volunteers give their time to help make communities stronger, provide support to improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable people, and allow the NHS more time to care.
In 2021 Carter Jonas engaged with the Royal Voluntary Service COVID-19 Vaccination Programme, enabling many of our people to give their time to help the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in their local community.
"The Royal Voluntary Service would like to thank Carter Jonas for supporting the national vaccination programme by signposting our Vaccine Steward volunteer role to your employees. Volunteers have been vital to the success of the vaccination programme and your support has helped inspire more people to step forward and volunteer.”
Our Employee volunteering days
Local community support
As much of our work is advising our clients on their property portfolio and strategy, we recognise that the advice we give can often have a large environmental impact.
With national targets set for reducing environmental impact and the increasing urgency to find more sustainable solutions, we understand that we have a responsibility through our best practice advice and thought leadership to amplify the positive impact we have on the environmental agenda by improving the sustainability performance and outcomes of our clients property interests.
And by doing so, we not only help our clients mitigate the risks posed by climate change and build resilience but also contribute positively to the UK’s sustainability targets.
"we not only help our clients mitigate the risks posed by climate change and build resilience but also contribute positively to the UK’s sustainability targets"
Annual Target: Increase recording of ESG impact as part of close of project SOP
Actual YTD Progress: None
Record our environmental impact through our projects
We made no progress against this objective in 2021. The retrospective recording of the positive environmental impacts our work has is difficult to establish. Essentially if the framework has not been put in place at the inception (or even better prior to inception) of a project then the recorded impact too often becomes anecdotal. For 2022 we are working with our project management and fee-earning teams on methodologies to adopt alongside their normal working practices where positive impacts can be captured and recorded in a more structured way and be evidenced (and reported on here) at the end of a project.
Annual Target: Measure the acreage of the biodiversity offsetting land that CJ have advised on?
Actual YTD Progress: 60 acres 2020, 4,915 acres in 2021
Impact of our work through biodiversity net gain
In 2021 we were privileged to be invited to work on a landmark project that amongst other aspects focussed on measuring the biodiversity of a very substantial land holding. Unfortunately, we are not able to share more details about the project at this stage. Whilst the project is a very good example of the work our teams can do, at scale, in the natural environment a project of this size is very rare and as a result could set an unrealistic benchmark for 2022. Therefore for 2022 we have maintained a target that still represents a stretch target, but uses the 2021 target as a baseline rather than our actual performance in 2021.
Annual Target: Facilitate on-site 5GW renewable energy from 2020 to 2025 (at least 1GW annually)
Actual YTD Progress: 0.32GW in 2020 0.53GW facilitated in 2021 0.19GW facilitated in 2022 to date Running Total: 1.04GW
Impact of our work through GWh of renewable energy delivered
We have made a slow start to this objective, but we had anticipated this would be the case. The process of identifying sites, completing feasibility studies, negotiating terms and securing grid connections, and then working through the public consultation and planning process can be quite lengthy, and the outcome for delivering schemes uncertain. This is why we set ourselves a five year target. As you can see from the figures, we are behind target at the moment (running 1.04GW against our 2GW running target), however with a significant pipeline of projects due to deliver in 2022, we are confident by the end of the next recording period we will be in line with our five year target, and potentially slightly ahead.
Annual Target: Establish and benchmark the number of local SME suppliers and contractors used for all Carter Jonas internal and external activities
Local SME suppliers/ contractors
Annual Target: Promote our peoples engagement measured through training and events attended with our memberships of UKGBC, IEMA, Clear Assured etc.
Actual YTD Progress: 20
Industry memberships to adopt best ways of working
Annual Target: Maintain or exceed our Net Promoter target score of Excellent (80%) every quarter
Actual YTD Progress: 86
Client Satisfaction measured by Net Promoter
Biodiversity Net-gain
Carter Jonas has developed a visual mapping tool which enables the biodiversity value of a site to be estimated according to the Defra Biodiversity Metric. Once a baseline has been calculated, the tool can then be used to compare anticipated biodiversity gains or losses on the site as a result of land use change, habitat creation or enhancement.
The mapping tool has been utilised to assess the potential for biodiversity net gain across a number of holdings; including to provide wider advice regards potential natural capital opportunities, including carbon sequestration through tree planting and peatland restoration, and the incoming Environmental Land Management Schemes.
Diversity and Inclusion is a key component of the Carter Jonas vision and critical for the business to build its talent pipelines and remain competitive. By increasing diversity within our workforce, we will attract a greater number of talented people to our business, encourage better team collaboration, improve performance and customer satisfaction, increase retention rates and achieve greater success in new markets.
Annual Target: All staff to receive national living wage (Updated annually)
A fair level of pay
Our result in 2021 is disappointing. The firm remains committed to providing apprenticeships across a wide range of our core services, throughout our network. The poor performance in 2021 can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic that made office working, essential to effective mentoring, uncertain. Applications for apprenticeships were also lower than normal. Our objective is to increase apprenticeships across the form so that by 2025 we are regularly welcoming over 12 new apprentices into the firm each year. With new relationships being forged between Carter Jonas and FE/HE providers we are confident that we will reach this target.
Annual Target: 40 (cumulative) number of apprentices employed between 2020 to 2025. (8 Apprentices in 2020)
Actual YTD Progress: 5
Apprenticeships
Annual Target: Aim to increase our BAME numbers to 10% by 2025 (5.5% as of 2020)
Actual YTD Progress: 6%
Diversity % of BAME staff
Annual Target: Increase numbers of women on our boards to 30% by 2025 (22% as of 2020)
Actual YTD Progress: 22%
Women on our boards
Annual Target: Maintain an 50:50 male:female graduate intake annually
Actual YTD Progress: 58:42
Graduates
Annual Target: Aim to reduce the mean gender pay gap by 10% by 2025 from 2019 baseline (GPG of 30% as of 2019)
Actual YTD Progress: 15.00%
Gender pay gap
Annual Target: 14% of graduate intake to be BAME annually
Actual YTD Progress: 4%
Annual Target: Adopt Changing the face of property charter
Leadership in Property
Annual Target: Maintain position on steering group of Changing Face of Property
Annual Target: Introduce new training module to be completed by at least 80% of all our people by 2022
Actual YTD Progress: Not achieved. Progress made but not complete
Internal Employee Sustainability Training & E-learning
Annual Target: Incremental increase number of ambassadors by 20% by 2025 from 2020 levels (33 ambassadors as of 2020)
Actual YTD Progress: 38
School Ambassador Network
Annual Target: IEach ambassador to complete at least one school visit annually
Actual YTD Progress: Not recorded
Annual Target: 100% of staff to complete EDI training module
Actual YTD Progress: Completed
Equality Diversity & Inclusion
Annual Target: Continually increase on our Satisfaction & Engagement Score of 75% from 2018.
Actual YTD Progress: Achieved
Staff Satisfaction Survey
Annual Target: 50% of our people to have attended a form of Personal Development relating to Health and Wellbeing to 2022 annually
Actual YTD Progress: 25%
Health & Wellbeing
The new training modules have been created and will be implemented in Q1 2022.
A new recording system for our ambassadors has been implemented and reporting on this metric will begin in 2022. Anecdotally we believe we hit our target in 2021, but without an objective measure we haven’t been able to report progress on this measure.
With 900 people at Carter Jonas a target of 450 people attending a form of Health and Wellbeing personal development was always going to be stretching. In 2021 we managed to encourage over 200 people to take part in some form of personal Health and Wellbeing development. For 2022 we have maintained the objective and for the good of our peoples health and wellbeing we are determined to hit this objective.
Health and Wellbeing - Spring challenge
During the final lockdown, in March 2021, Carter Jonas organised a firmwide initiative to boost morale and encourage team working and communication – the ‘spring challenge.’ The challenge took place over the entire month of March, with a different theme each week: art, food and drink, health, and an escape room!
For the first three weeks, teams had to discuss the theme to discover the hidden talents within the group – from baking to painting, and carpentry to knitting. The final week was all about working together.
Over the course of the challenge, we had over 150 entries.
Carter Jonas has worked closely with the natural environment for hundreds of years and we want to minimise any adverse impact our business activities have. This means looking at everything from reducing the energy consumption in our offices, the amount of paper and water we use to our carbon footprint from business travel. Our vision is to exceed our statutory requirements and lead the industry by reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.
Annual Target: Reduce YOY to become climate positive by 2030- tCO2e/£m turnover (2010/11 baseline)
Actual YTD Progress: 52.87% reduction
CO2e emissions (Scope 1, 2 & 3)
Measurement of business card use has now been implemented and our performance will be more fully recorded in 2022. In 2021 we reduced (by 50%) the quantity of business cards given to new starters and anyone ordering business cards from our online system. We also implemented vCards for everyone via our website, making it easier for our people to share their contact details electronically. We also trialled QR and contactless (via a smart phone app) business ‘cards’, but ultimately did not implement these technologies as their reliability was poor.
Actual YTD Progress: -79.8% to end of 2021
Annual Target: 5% reduction annually from 2015 baseline- sheet use per person
Paper/ print use
Annual Target: Use technology to reduce number of business cards by 25% from 2019/2020 levels (what is the 2019/20 number of Business cards printed?)
Business cards
Actual YTD Progress: 100% of IT hardware recycled or repurposed. Zero sent to landfill.
Annual Target: 99% of IT hardware recycled or re-purposed annually?
IT Measures - Electrical Waste and IT equipment
Actual YTD Progress: 2020 Baseline established at 0.12 tCO2e/£m turnover 2021 Performance at 0.11 tCO2e/£m turnover
Annual Target: 20% reduction in carbon emissions (tCO2e) of IT Infrastructure
IT Measures - Carbon emissions
Actual YTD Progress: 27% increase
Annual Target: 50% reduction in postage
IT Measures – Postage usage
Actual YTD Progress: Policy established. Inventory of single use plastic completed and strategy for reduction/replacement agreed.
Annual Target: Establish and implement a policy for reduction in single use- plastic by Q4 2021
Zero Plastic Taskforce
Versus 2020, our performance on this metric is extremely disappointing. However comparing our performance against 2020 is something of a misnomer. 2020 was an exceptional year, COVID-19 meant all of our offices were closed for the majority of the year, and as a result our postage fell by 50% compared to 2019. The partial return to office working in 2021 therefore saw a natural increase in postage. However through a change in working practices accelerated by the pandemic the usage of postage has not returned to pre-pandemic levels and whilst our 2021 postage is 27% higher than in 2020, it is 30% down on 2019 levels. For 2022 we expect levels to stabilize at the 2021 level and with new technologies being brought forward (penciled for go-live end of 2022) we hope to further reduce our use of post across the firm.
Waste & IT Equipment
In 2021, through working closely with our IT equipment and recycling suppliers we managed to divert 100% of our Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) from landfill. By working with our partners we have ensured that computing equipment that has been superseded and replaced at Carter Jonas, but that still works and could be put to use in the community, finds a new home. Other WEEE with less utility (broken machines and wires, redundant peripherals) are also diverted from landfill and 100% of the material sent for recycling.
Moving forward through the innovative implementation of technology we are finding ways to reduce the amount of new electronic equipment we bring into the business. Shared printers, shared scanners, new approaches to franking and sending our post and how we use telephony in the business means that moving forward we are confident that we will, not only continue to divert 100% of our WEEE from landfill, but also we will be generating less WEEE year on year.
To ensure our approach is not fragmented we focus our charitable activities on two core charities:
Pathways to Property – We are a bronze partner of Pathways to Property which aims to widen access to the real estate profession by raising awareness of and aspirations about the vast range of careers available within the industry
LandAid – We are a strategic partner of LandAid whose aim is to end youth homelessness in the UK
Actual YTD Progress: 2021 £42,500
Annual Target: Minimum £25,000 annually
LandAid - Funds Raised
Actual YTD Progress: Bronze Partner. Reported to our people as part of our quarterly charity newsletter
Annual Target: Continue with annual involvement /support and quarterly update on progress
Pathways to Property
Actual YTD Progress: £84,630 raised for charity. Reported to our people quarterly through our charity newsletter
Annual Target: Measure and report on activity, time and funds donated or generated on a quarterly basis
Other charitable activity
Actual YTD Progress: 1,358 hours donated
Pro-bono and charitable activity
Our Work with LandAid
For over 10 years, Carter Jonas has been raising invaluable funds for LandAid, helping vulnerable young people across the UK turn their lives around. In that time we have organised a plethora of innovative events and fundraising activities. In 2022 we are the lead sponsor of the Tour de LandAid, set to become one of the key fundraising events of the year. In 2021 the Tour De LandAid raised almost £50,000 to help end youth homelessness.
Our teams also take part in a variety of sponsored activity for LandAid including the sleepout each year and the 10K…not to mention the bake sales, fancy dress, office quizzes and even at our head office a wet sponge stocks!
We also work strategically with LandAid and are currently helping fund vital projects with charities such as Canopy Housing, enabling the charity to transform three empty properties in inner city Leeds into affordable housing for six young people who were at risk of becoming homeless.
Between 2013 and 2019 the annual Carter Jonas Pedalthon cycling event, a sought after staple in the LandAid Events calendar consistently attracted over 300 cyclists from across the industry and in 2019 raised well over £20,000.
Roles & Responsibilities
Carter Jonas’ Management Board, chaired by our Chief Executive, takes responsibility for establishing and developing our ESG policy and ensuring that our ESG goals are achieved.
This responsibility is cascaded through the firm via our Sustainability Group to ensure adoption in all of our offices across all of our business units and service areas.
The day-to-day management of our performance against our annual scorecard, across our sustainability pillars, rests with our Sustainability Group, chaired by our Head of Sustainability.
Promoting Sustainability within the Partnership and facilitating two-way communication of Sustainability issues within the divisions and teams.
Members of the group are asked to lead on key projects that will facilitate the achievement of our Sustainability goals set out in our Balanced Scrorecard.
Group Leadership
Group Members
"The day-to-day management of our performance against our annual scorecard, across our sustainability pillars, rests with our Sustainability Group"
Group Members, left to right: Robert Allfrey, Senior Surveyor, Katy Blake, Senior Business Development Manager, Jessica Chalmers, Head of Regional Property Management, Charlotte Edwards, HR Coordinator, Tom Foulkes, Head of Marketing and Communications, Anna Kwiatkowski, Rural Associate, Willow Mercer, Senior Planner, Amy Nolan, Infrastructure Partner, Samuel Smylie, Business Analyst, Jackie Stansfield, York Office Manager, Kate Stevens, Residential Agent
Group Leadership, left to right: Chair: Rohan Shiram, Head of Sustainability Vice-Chair: Lisa Simon, Equity Partner, Head of Residential Stuart Hopkinson, Quality Manager Holly Butler, Sustainability Group Coordinator
Appendix 1: Our ESG goals & targets
We take a purpose-led, sustainable and distinctive approach to business. As part of this we are committed to achieving the following strategic ESG goals:
Deliver our People Strategy 2025 to be the best place to work within the industry, ensuring that we are a model of safe, healthy and inclusive working practices.
Provide regular training to educate and motivate our people to adopt ways of working to improve sustainability within the workplace and provide best advice to our clients.
Become a Climate Positive business by 2030, driving down energy consumption and reducing our net greenhouse gas emissions to below zero, ensuring that we are transparent about our progress every year.
Measure and report annually on the Societal Value we deliver as a business, both directly through our corporate activities as well as through the advice and support we provide to our clients.
Create opportunities for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises to provide goods and services as part of our supply chain
Engage and collaborate openly with our peers and industry partners in seeking to disrupt the barriers to progress on key systemic challenges, with a particular focus on tackling health inequality, and social exclusion.
Work with clients and aim to facilitate the development of an additional 5GW of renewable energy capacity from 2020 to 2025.
We will measure the acreage of biodiversity offsetting land and natural capital that we have advised on and where possible will assist developers and landowners to facilitate offsetting arrangements.
Ensure that our primary supply chain work with us to help achieve our objectives by engaging with them to deliver best practice, adhere to industry standards on Modern Slavery, GDPR and other relevant legislation.
Aim to increase our BAME numbers from 5.5% to 10% by 2025
Work to reduce our Gender Pay Gap by 10% by 2025
Appendix 2: Balance Scorecard 2021
Appendix 3: Balance Scorecard 2022
