Green Investment
Our commitment to CSR has been established through green building design, specification and operational management.
Packaging
Our packaging is manufactured with a high recycled content.
CSR in the Workplace
Our policy on Corporate Social Responsibility is established across the whole of the Big Yellow Group.
Our CSR policy
Big Yellow leads the way in sustainable real estate. Big Yellow’s CSR policy aims to strike the balance between its social, economic and environmental responsibilities as an owner, operator and developer of self storage buildings. In order to maintain a sustainable business for its customers, staff and investors, the Board has committed significant resources to the social and environmental aspects of its operations.
Climate
Climate change is a global impact that we are all responsible for and must act upon locally. From the early Earth Summits to more recent UK environmental legislation, international control measures have been set in place to change behaviour. The aim of this legislation is to reduce the impact of man’s activities on the planet’s life support systems. These delicate and complex systems include the finite resources of our land, atmosphere, oceans, soils and biodiversity. One of the most significant impacts is the exploitation of fossil fuels and their emissions into the atmosphere. Consensus of opinion is that our global climate is changing due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse’ gas emissions in the earth's atmosphere. This is also known as 'global warming' and is one of the main environmental and social drivers for Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development as addressed in our CSR Policy.
Stakeholders
Big Yellow, as a developer and operator of self storage, sees CSR as a belief that we should take a precautionary principal on the social and environmental impacts of our operations on our customers, employees and local communities. Other like-minded stakeholders who have similar policies include our supply chain, investors and local planning authorities. Therefore our stakeholders are also drivers for change to establish and improve CSR policies and sustainable development. Historically, most companies have been changing from a ‘single minded’ financial strategy to a more integrated business model which accounts for risks and opportunities in such aspects as safety, reputation and the growing ‘green’ consumer markets. As such, we report annually on how we improve our social and environmental key performance indicators.
Carbon reduction
From an environmental perspective, our store operations and construction energy emissions, also known as our ‘carbon footprint’ has been identified as our most significant impact. Carbon reduction has benefited from our building portfolio progressively changing from refurbished to purpose built, well insulated stores. These buildings do not require heating and cooling in over 97% of their area. Energy efficient design and specifications and onsite renewable energy generation through solar photovoltaic panels and ground source heat pumps reduced energy grid supply and carbon emissions.
Environmental supply chain management
During construction, some of the greatest building material costs are for steel, timber particle board, breeze blocks and rock wool insulation. These components have a high recycled content and environmental life cycle impact. During operations our merchandise suppliers are reviewed for eco-labelled packaging materials. Cardboard boxes and wrapping paper have high levels of recycled content. Our plastic storage boxes can also be recycled.
Adding value
Brownfield sites, also known as ‘previously developed land’ are developed by Big Yellow and the risk of historical contamination, if present, is always reduced to a minimum.
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- Our CSR policy
- Climate
- Stakeholders
- Carbon reduction
- Environmental supply chain management
- Adding value
reduction in our carbon
emissions footprint
reduction in
carbon emissions
for occupied space
solar electricity saving
since 2008
increase in solar
electricity generation