Improving the environment and quality of life.

Our goal is to provide an environment where our people feel safe and supported and where physical and mental health are regarded with equal importance. We offer a benefits package that includes a digital GP service, employee assistance programme providing legal and counselling services which is also accessible by subcontractors, financial education, group income protection and private medical insurance. 

All our divisions are involved in projects that require health and wellbeing to be integrated into a building's design and functionality.

Our human rights policy states our commitment to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The policy applies to the Group, our subsidiaries and the entities in which we hold a majority interest. 

We have an independently run Raising Concerns facility to ensure that our employees and subcontractors are empowered to report any worries they may have. 

• Human rights policy
• Modern slavery statement
  

We are working hard to address issues of diversity and inclusion that exist across the sector. We do so in a number of ways – by providing flexible working patterns, actively seeking to recruit from a wide pool of candidates, encouraging children and young people to consider a career in construction through our involvement with schools and colleges, and offering a variety of apprenticeship and professional qualification sponsorship programmes. 

We maintain partnerships with Women into Construction (WiC), Working Families/Working Mums, BPIC (Black Professionals in Construction) and BuildForce UK. These networks help us reach a wider audience  on the benefits of a career in construction including those who may have a different perception of what it's like to work in our industry.

We invest in developing our people so that they can maximise their potential, feel fulfilled in their roles and progress their careers. In 2023 we moved our e-learning programmes to a more dynamic platform, significantly increasing the range of courses we can offer. 

We provide work experience, training and apprenticeship opportunities for people local to our projects, and work with educational institutions to invest in training and work opportunities for young people.

Our goal is net zero carbon by 2045. It is more stringent than our previous goal of net zero by 2030 as it includes our wider Scope 3 emissions. These are emissions over which we do not have direct control, such as carbon embodied in materials and generated by operating buildings once we hand them over. We have introduced 2045 targets to reduce our Scopes 1, 2 and operational Scope 3 emissions by 90%, relying on just 10% of carbon offsetting, and wider Scope 3 by 60%. We have realigned all our targets, which are validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), to a 1.5°C scenario. We are on track to meet our 2030 targets of a 60% reduction in Scope 1, Scope 2 and operational Scope 3 emissions.

Over 90% of our emissions are generated by our projects and the majority of these emissions are wider Scope 3. Therefore the most effective way we can help tackle climate change is by supporting our clients in decarbonising their projects, which includes helping our supply chain reduce their own emissions. We consider climate resilience when procuring, designing and decommissioning, and will be able to achieve more as demand from our clients rises. 

We have maintained a CDP A leadership score for our carbon reduction disclosures since 2020. In 2023, we won an award for Net Zero Innovation of the Year at the edie Awards for climate leadership. The award was for our 'Growing Natural Capital' project in the Dorn Valley Woodlands in partnership with the Blenheim Estate. 

We see our supply chain as partners who play a strategic role in our success. We are working to keep reducing our average days to pay invoices, in line with the Prompt Payment Code. The relationships we’ve developed with our supply chain help ensure we continue to receive the materials we need for our projects and the highest standards of workmanship. 

We try to procure locally whenever we can to reduce our environmental impacts while creating opportunities for SMEs (small- and medium-sized  enterprises). In 2023, 65% of our spend was with 10,190 SMEs.

Our Morgan Sindall Supply Chain Family, set up 20 years ago, has over 400 members. Every two years we hold a large-scale networking event where members can meet and discuss new innovations, with each other, with contacts from across the Group, and with our clients.

We continue to support the Supply Chain Sustainability School which provides free training on energy management, waste, modern slavery, biodiversity, mental health and wellbeing, and other subjects. In 2023, 10,500 e-learning modules were completed by our supply chain members, and 1,910 suppliers attended training workshops. We were awarded Gold status by the School in recognition of our increasing involvement and active knowledge sharing.

Our teams and our supply chain often collaborate on new ways of doing things that will help us achieve our responsible business objectives, such as improving safety or reducing carbon and waste. Recent initiatives include new  safety evaluation software to identify where support and training is needed, new ways of collecting environmental product declarations to help improve our data on embodied carbon, and workshops with suppliers to discuss ways of reducing carbon and reusing items removed during refurbishments. We have been awarded Supplier Engagement leader status by CDP.

We want to leave a positive legacy by improving the built environment and creating social and economic value for the communities where we work.  We work with our clients, partners and supply chain before the start of a project to find ways of doing this. We build affordable, energy-efficient housing. We offer the bulk of our subcontracts to local small and medium enterprises. We provide job and training opportunities for local people including those belonging to disadvantaged or underrepresented groups.

Some of our divisions have formed long-term relationships with schools and colleges to offer training, work experience and information about careers in construction. This initiative helps young people in their search for a career while also aiming to increase diversity and address skills shortages in the industry.

We have been using three platforms to measure our social value. The first is our Social Value Bank which measures and tracks in monetary terms the value we add to local communities through our work. The tool applies best practice valuation methodology from the Treasury Green Book and OECD guidelines. 

In addition, we use tools requested by our clients: the Social Value Portal, used by many public sector organisations, and HACT, an external verifier that uses the 'Wellbeing Valuation Approach'.