Midland Heart

Instinctively Green were appointed by Midland Heart to deliver a bespoke sustainability strategy for the organisation.

Midland Heart is an established organisation that has performed well over recent years. As an important housing provider working with a range of communities and delivering new and regeneration projects, Midland Heart have indicated a desire to adopt a robust sustainability strategy and deliverable action plan to bring their work together.

As a provider of some 32,000 affordable homes in West and East Midlands there is a desire to continue to develop new homes while ensuring that existing homes are energy efficient and the customer is put first. Midland Heart recognise the importance of bringing their activities together in a sustainability strategy which crosses their business areas to ensure that efficiency savings are made.

A key part of the strategy creation was to ensure that the subsequent strategy became embedded within the organisation and ultimately touched on every part of the business. To achieve this we formed a cross departmental and hierarchical Green Team. We worked with this team for nine months, meeting monthly to progress and bespoke the strategy. The strategy has clear vision: 2020 Vision.

Key tasks carried out by Instinctively Green were:

• Production of a bespoke sustainability strategy for Midland Heart
• Creation of two key documents: the sustainability matrix and an implementation plan
• Outline tasks as part of a communication plan

Successful outcomes were:

• Board adoption of the plan in July 2012
• Engagement throughout the organisation started
• Series of quick wins and agreement for a Green Week
• A focused implementation plan to roll the strategy out across staff, partners and stakeholders
• A successful consultation exercise
• A carbon footprint baseline
• Initial targets and reporting structure set up