Our Corporate Social Responsibility Report: A Look at 2022

Corporate social responsibility reporting has attracted a fair amount of cynicism over the years, and some of that cynicism is earned. Reports that list commitments without measuring outcomes, or that describe intentions as achievements, do not serve the people reading them well. We have tried to write this summary differently: to say clearly what we set out to do, what we actually did, and where we fell short or are still working.

The full 2022 report is available as a separate document. This summary is intended for readers who want the substance of what we found without working through the complete audit trail. It covers our environmental commitments and what we measured against them, our work with communities and supply chains, our internal people policies, and the areas where progress has been slower than we wanted.

Why we publish this report

Publishing a CSR report is not legally required for an organisation of our size. We do it because we think accountability matters and because we believe that the built environment sector, which has significant environmental and social impacts, should be more transparent about what those impacts are and what is being done about them.

We are also aware that reporting without meaningful targets and measurement is of limited value. We have tried to set targets that are specific and measurable, to report honestly when we have not met them, and to explain what we think happened and what we are doing differently as a result. Where we have met targets, we have tried to give enough detail that the numbers are meaningful rather than decorative.

The process of preparing the report is itself useful, quite apart from the published document. It requires us to gather data that we might not otherwise collect systematically, to have conversations across the organisation about performance and priorities, and to make explicit decisions about what we are and are not committed to. Those decisions are then recorded and become the basis for next year's assessment.

Environmental commitments and progress

Our environmental commitments in 2022 fell into three areas: reducing our direct energy use and associated emissions, reducing construction waste across the projects we write about and advise on, and improving the environmental information we provide to readers making decisions about materials and methods.

On direct energy use, we reduced the carbon intensity of our own operations by shifting to a fully renewable electricity tariff for our office space and by reducing business travel relative to the 2021 baseline. The reduction in travel partly reflects the continuation of remote working practices that began during the pandemic, but the shift in how we work has been maintained by choice rather than necessity, and we think it represents a genuine change in approach rather than a temporary adjustment.

On construction waste, our focus has been on the articles and guidance we produce about waste reduction practices on site. We published four in-depth pieces on waste management planning, the use of pre-cut and pre-fabricated components, the measurement of waste arisings, and the certification schemes that verify waste diversion from landfill. These reach an audience that includes both contractors and clients, and the feedback we receive suggests they are used in practical decision-making rather than simply read and set aside.

On environmental information for readers, we introduced a materials reference section that covers the environmental credentials of common construction materials, including embodied carbon data where it is available and caveats where the data is incomplete or contested. This is an area where the information available to practitioners is improving, but where it remains patchy and sometimes unreliable. We think providing clear, honest assessments of what is and is not known is more useful than presenting partial data as though it were settled.

Community and supply chain

Our community commitments in 2022 focused on two areas: supporting organisations that work to increase diversity in the architecture and construction professions, and improving the representation of smaller, community-based and social-enterprise businesses in the projects and suppliers we cover.

On diversity in the professions, we partnered with two organisations that run outreach and mentoring programmes for young people from underrepresented backgrounds who are considering careers in architecture, engineering or construction. Our contribution took the form of editorial coverage, which included interviews with practitioners who had used those programmes, and pro bono content development support for their online resources. We did not contribute financially in 2022, which is something we are looking at for the coming year.

On supply chain representation, we made a deliberate effort to include smaller and less well-known businesses in our coverage rather than defaulting to the largest and most established firms. This is not straightforward: larger firms have more resources for press and marketing and are more easily findable. Seeking out smaller businesses requires more editorial effort. We think it produces better content, and we think it matters that the organisations we cover reflect the actual range of the industry rather than just its most visible participants.

We also looked at our own supply chain during 2022 and identified a number of suppliers where we had no information about their social or environmental practices. We began a process of gathering that information, with the intention of making procurement decisions that reflect our stated values. That process is ongoing: we have information from about sixty per cent of our significant suppliers and are working through the remainder.

People and workplace

Our people commitments in 2022 covered pay, development opportunities, workload management and workplace culture. We are a small organisation, which means that the formal processes typical of larger employers are less applicable, but also that the experience of each individual has a disproportionate effect on the overall culture.

We conducted a pay review in 2022 and addressed several gaps that the review identified. All staff are paid above the Real Living Wage, and we have committed to reviewing pay annually rather than waiting for staff to raise concerns. We also reviewed the distribution of work and identified that workload was concentrated in ways that were not sustainable for the individuals affected. We have made changes to how work is allocated and to how capacity is managed, and we will measure the effect of those changes in the 2023 review.

On development, we introduced a modest annual budget for each staff member to spend on training, conferences or other professional development activities. Take-up in the first year was variable: some people used the budget fully, others did not use it at all. We think the variable take-up reflects a combination of workload pressure, which left some people feeling they did not have time, and uncertainty about what was available and appropriate. We plan to address both of those factors in the coming year.

On workplace culture, we ran an anonymous survey in late 2022 that asked about psychological safety, inclusion, and the quality of management communication. The results were mixed in ways that were instructive: the areas of strength were broadly what we expected, but several of the areas for improvement were ones we had not fully appreciated. We are working through the implications of those findings with the whole team, and the process of doing so has itself been useful.

Where the work continues

There are three areas where we made less progress in 2022 than we had planned.

The first is on measuring the environmental impact of the content we produce. We set out to develop a methodology for assessing whether our editorial output was having a measurable effect on the decisions made by the practitioners who read it. We found this harder than we expected. The relationship between an article about sustainable materials and a subsequent procurement decision is not easily traced, and the proxies we considered, such as reader surveys and click-through data, do not capture what we actually want to know. We have not abandoned the goal, but we have not yet found an approach we are confident in.

The second is on financial contributions to community organisations. We identified two organisations we wanted to support financially, but budget constraints in 2022 meant we did not make those contributions. We have committed to revisiting this in the 2023 budget planning process and have allocated a provisional amount.

The third is on the breadth of our supply chain review. We set out to have environmental and social data from all significant suppliers by the end of 2022. We reached sixty per cent. The remaining forty per cent are smaller suppliers where the information is harder to obtain and where our leverage to require disclosure is limited. We will continue working through these, but we are realistic about the pace.

Reporting honestly on where things have not gone as planned is not comfortable, but it is the point. A report that only describes successes is not an accountability document; it is a marketing exercise. We hope this summary is more useful than that, and we welcome responses from readers who want to challenge what we have said or offer suggestions for the 2023 commitments.