community involvement
“The Gold Award is fantastic recognition of the hard work put in by the Solutions for the Planet team, our business and school partners and of course all the inspirational young people that we work with each year. Support from Tarmac and our other business partners over the past four years has helped us to grow our reach and move from working with 600 to 3500 students each year. ”
Jen Baughan, CEO, Solutions for the Planet
highlights
We're committed to ensuring every site keeps the local community informed and connected by developing a site-specific Community Engagement Plan. Developed by our local site managers, the plan helps us to work with communities on the issues that are important to them. They provide a framework for community involvement through activities such as liaison meetings, open days and major community events. They also identify where we can support communities through investment, employee volunteering and charitable donations. At some of our larger operational sites we also have site-specific websites, newsletters and social media accounts to keep everyone informed. Find out about the activities we’ve carried out in our communities during the year.
In 2018, our employees spent over 8,500 hours volunteering to support the local community and the business made donations to charities and community projects, directly, with in-kind contributions of materials and labour and through the Tarmac Landfill Communities Fund. The employees at our Stancombe quarry hosted an open day to give the local community an insight in to our industry. Read more here.
We believe in opening up opportunities for young people to learn and gain experience of our industry and business as they will be our talent for the future. We work closely with local schools and colleges to promote science, technology, engineering and math’s (STEM) and host open days and site visits for school children for them to learn about the essential role our materials play in everyday life. These visits provide a great opportunity for us to showcase the types of career and employment opportunities we offer to encourage the next generation into the business.
We contribute to a number of educational programmes which help support and develop young people across the UK. Our partnership with Solutions for the Planet has proved its success by being awarded with the Global Awards - Best Education Project (Environmental Impact) award. In partnership with SkillForce, we have launched, a jointly designed, one-year programme that will support students from Rawlins Academy, in Leicestershire.
One of the main focuses for our school visits this year has been cycle safety, especially important being the safety of vulnerable road users around Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs). Our transport teams have been working with schools to promote and encourage road safety awareness in their local communities. Read more about the activities we have carried out this year here
We understand the importance of the natural environment on all our lives. Our aim is to make a net positive contribution to biodiversity, leaving our sites in a better condition than when we acquired them. We also want to use our skills and resources to enhance the environment for those in the communities around us. We do this is by working in partnership with local community groups and local and national environmental organisations that share our views on the importance of community involvement and the provision of volunteering opportunities in nature conservation. We work with organisations like the Wildlife Trusts, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Groundwork; helping communities find practical solutions to some of the challenges they face. We also promote opportunities for public access to our sites by including them on the Mineral Products Association’s National Nature Park.