HOME, a celebrated centre for art, theatre and film in Manchester, has boosted its impressive environmental credentials by working with advisors to improve sustainability in its supply chain.
Since opening its doors in 2015, HOME has welcomed over two million visitors to its city centre complex, which includes two large performance venues, five cinema screens, a gallery space, and a café bar and restaurant.
The centre has already been praised for its sustainability commitments, having won awards for its building and facilities as well as its work with staff to promote environmental awareness.
The building uses a 100 per cent renewable electricity supplier alongside an on-site combined heat and power (CHP) plant and is operated by a building management system (BMS) which controls and monitors energy use.
HOME is also the world’s first arts organisation to train all its staff in Carbon Literacy, ensuring that the whole team have the knowledge and skills to communicate about climate awareness; actively driving carbon reduction through collective responsibility.
HOME recognised that these efforts should not just be confined to internal operations, and has been working with specialist environmental business advisors at GC Business Growth Hub to ensure its supply chain reflects the same values.
With the support of Business Growth Hub advisor Clare Fallon, building and environmental manager Debbie Bell developed a sustainable procurement questionnaire which could be used to assess potential and existing suppliers.
The aim was to ensure suppliers matched HOME’s values, but also to identify smaller businesses who could benefit from support to reduce their environmental impact.
Clare Fallon, Business Growth Hub advisor explained: “We tested a range of survey questions and formats with some of HOME’s long-standing suppliers, gathered their feedback and produced a scoring mechanism which compares suppliers across key areas such as environmental policy, impact, reporting and monitoring, and communication and training.”
The finalised survey was piloted in a general waste and recycling tender in 2018, resulting in a switch to a more sustainable supplier.
Debbie Bell, environmental manager at Home says: “To remain a leader in sustainability we need to be an ambassador to those not only in our first sphere of influence, but outside of it too. The support we have received from Clare has helped us make significant and timely progress on this front.
“For example, our new waste contractor is able to provide us with more detailed waste information, allowing us to work with our catering contractor and other teams to reduce waste. We’re now working to embed our Sustainable Procurement Policy through all our teams.”
