Environmental Policy Statement

This Environmental Policy Statement summarises English Partnerships’ aspirations and achievements to reduce environmental impact within its Programme and Business Activities and business premises.

Programmes and Business Activities

English Partnerships is committed to the innovative use of its sites to promote new standards of sustainable development and advance best practice as well as the highest standards of design, environmental sustainability and construction. English Partnerships recognises that although its activities have environmental benefits through its regeneration development programme, they also have significant impacts on the environment.

English Partnerships is:

1. Developing methods to reduce the environmental impact of our programmes and business activities.

2. Meeting the requirements of all relevant environmental legislation.

3. Supporting government environmental policies and initiatives.

4. Implementing systems for the recording, monitoring and reporting of our environmental performance.

5. Promoting project-specific energy efficiency and sustainable energy generation through continually improving environmental standards across all our development sites.

6. Managing and minimising transport related impacts through the introduction of project-specific ‘green travel’ plans.

7. Continuing to support and promote innovation and carbon reduction on exemplar projects across the country.

8. Becoming an ‘intelligent client’ by setting clear environmental requirements in our development briefs for built-environment projects or when working alongside other partners.

Quality and Price Standards

English Partnerships is committed to creating quality places. To achieve this, we have adopted a set of national Quality and Price Standards to help developers meet our expectations. These standards include specific measures to reduce the environmental impact of new developments, such as the adoption of BREEAM / EcoHomes standards, improvements in construction efficiency and restricting the specification of Category C materials (as defined within the BRE Green Guide to Housing Specification).

Design for Manufacture 2

The second phase of the Design for Manufacture competition challenges housebuilders and the construction industry to develop environmentally friendly, low carbon housing developments. The competition will involve the use of both private and public sector sites to provide low and zero carbon developments. English Partnerships will lead the competition process.

BREEAM – EcoHomes and NHER

English Partnerships has adopted a wide-ranging set of environmental standards for all new homes, retail, office, and industrial buildings constructed on its land. A commitment has set environmental standards to be achieved as follows:

Building Type	Rating Scheme	Standard
Residential	(BREEAM) EcoHomes NHER	Very Good 9.0
Offices	BREEAM for Offices	Very Good
Industrial	BREEAM 5/93	Very Good
Retail	BREEAM Retail	Very Good

Currently there are a number of landmark or exemplar schemes in progress which have adopted higher standards. These include the seven Millennium Communities, Broughton Atterbury (Milton Keynes), Central Milton Keynes, Omega (Warrington) and Lightmoor (Telford) which will all achieve BREEAM "Excellent" and NHER 10.0. All schemes in Milton Keynes achieve NHER 10.0. The Millennium Communities also achieve other, higher, specific environmental and construction targets.

EcoHomes balances environmental performance with the need for a high quality of life and a safe and healthy internal environment. The issues assessed are grouped into seven categories: energy; water; pollution; materials; transport; ecology and land use; and health and well-being.

The Code for Sustainable Homes

English Partnerships will adopt the Code for Sustainable Homes from 1 April 2007 in order to help the government demonstrate its benefits ahead of the Code becoming a legal requirement within the Building Regulations in approximately three years time.

A recently published report demonstrates the technical and cost implications of adopting the Code at different levels. This document is available to download from the Publications page.

Millennium Communities

The Millennium Communities Programme was initiated in 1997 with the launch of the development competition for Greenwich Millennium Village. One of the main objectives of the Programme is to influence the house-building industry and to encourage higher standards of innovation and energy efficiency. It is also looking to deliver 6,000 homes by 2010. A range of different types of site have been chosen to demonstrate that energy-efficient, environmentally responsible development is achievable regardless of geographic location.

All Millennium Communities will aim to meet the following objectives:

Minimise resource consumption
Protect and enhance local environment capital
Maximise design quality
Improve construction quality and efficiency
Increase social inclusion and participation
Maximise quality of life
Achieve long-term economic viability

The Millennium Communities are located at Greenwich Peninsula, South London; Allerton Bywater, near Leeds; New Islington, Ancoats, East Manchester; South Lynn, King’s Lynn, East Anglia; East Ketley, Telford; Oakgrove, Milton Keynes; Hastings, East Sussex.

CL:AIRE

CL:AIRE (Contaminated Land: Applications in Real Environments) is a not-for-profit organisation, incorporated in March 1999 to demonstrate research and technologies for the purpose of developing and providing confidence in sustainable and cost-effective methods for remediating contaminated land. Included within the technical remit are innovative methods for site characterisation and monitoring.

English Partnerships is a legal member of CL:AIRE and sits on its Board of Trustees. It has been instrumental in supporting CL:AIRE from its inception. When appropriate, English Partnerships' remediation projects are submitted as CL:AIRE projects. The final outputs are reported as summary findings and experiences, which are then made available to any interested party through CL:AIRE.

CL:AIRE’s operational objectives are to:

Establish a network of characterised, contaminated sites throughout the UK.
Demonstrate the application of technologies which may offer improved site investigation, monitoring or remediation solutions.
Develop a strategy for remediation technology research in the UK.
Disseminate information related to research and technology demonstrations on contaminated land.
Prepare and provide educational materials for the environmental industry, students and the general public.
Obtain funding to support CL:AIRE’s activities.

National Research Programme

English Partnerships continues to develop a security permission requirednational research programme, working in partnership with the Communities and Local Government (CLG), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), the Countryside Agency, the Environment Agency, British Waterways, and other public- and private-sector partners. The programme is operated through a National Research Group, managed by English Partnerships.

The following is likely to form the future research programme:

Increasing the amount of affordable housing
Building new communities (including sustainability/environmental performance of new developments)
Supporting communities in areas of economic decline
Making best use of the nation’s scarce supply of land (including innovative remediation techniques)
Further cross-cutting themes which run through all of the business lines including sustainable development

Housekeeping at English Partnerships

English Partnerships continues to introduce and promote a range of environmental improvements and energy saving efficiencies within its offices. The following initiatives are a result of suggestions collated and actioned by the English Partnerships Environmental Improvement Working Group:

1. Implementing a series of promotional activities to highlight environmental internal housekeeping issues for employees and visitors.

2. Undertaking energy efficiency audits and efficiency upgrades wherever appropriate.

3. Sourcing energy from renewable sources wherever office power consumption is within our complete control.

4. Adopting a positive approach to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in all our marketing and communications activities.

5. Continuing to develop and improve recycling practices at each office.

6. Removing R22 HCFC ozone depleting refrigerant from all our offices.

7. Procuring office furniture from sustainable sources.

8. Implementing systems for the recording, monitoring and reporting of our environmental performance relating to facilities management and travel.

9. Implementing the English Partnerships Travel Plan.

English Partnerships Travel Plan

English Partnerships is implementing an organisation-wide and site-specific Travel Plan that will provide employees and visitors with increased information and awareness of sustainable transport options.

Our Travel Plan has three key principles:

To stabilise the negative impact upon the environment caused by work related travel; and over time to seek to reduce this negative impact by promoting a wider range of sustainable travel opportunities and revised working practices;
To act as a responsible employer and leading public sector agency by promoting a range of travel options (including sustainable transport opportunities) and revised working practices that will assist the well being and productivity of staff and visitors;
To provide a framework for estate management that will enable the Agency to evaluate the suitability of office facilities by taking into consideration the availability of sustainable transport options.

Further information on the Travel Plan will be available at a future date on this website.

Last updated: 16 February 2008

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