Emmaus North East is working together to help the people we support and our surrounding communities towards more sustainable futures.
As a charity, Emmaus North East is compliant with all applicable standards, laws, requirements, regulations and customer expectations, but we have a strong desire to do even more. Our commitment to the environment and sustainability runs throughout our organisation. We have worked hard to align all of our charitable activities with the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
From our community home and solidarity actions to our social enterprise and charity shops, it’s a big team effort to reduce our negative impact on the environment. Everyone at Emmaus North East is working hard to embed environmental and sustainability action across our organisation. Driving forward this agenda, we have our Green Team, with members from across our charity, community and social enterprise.
Emmaus North East is dedicated to improving the lives of people who experience homelessness and poverty. As part of the support we offer, we strive to educate, inspire and encourage people to lead more sustainable lives. This includes recycling and reusing products in our workshop and charity shops, providing a good standard of housing and being an integral part of the community at large.
Our sustainability goals
Our shared goals include zero waste from workshop activities by 2030, the introduction of eco-friendly products in our community homes and social enterprises and a 5% energy use reduction in our housing stock and social enterprises by the end of 2025. We will continue to improve our environmental management system by working to the Investors in the Environment (iiE) criteria. You can find out more about our shared goals and commitments within our Environmental & Sustainability Policy.
Progress to date
We initially developed an action plan, setting out activities and areas of focus for the coming years. From this plan, we developed our own Environmental & Sustainability Policy and aligned our business plan to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We have since increased the number of companion places to 35, extended the number of users who can use Lucie’s Laundry by 10%, and achieved the iiE Silver level accreditation. To help us map our progress, we carried out a B Corp Impact Assessment, which highlighted that we’re at a good standard for social impact.
Going Green Together
Emmaus North East is being supported by the Going Green Together programme, led by the Voluntary Organisations’ Network North East (VONNE). The programme is delivered in partnership with the VONNE Climate Action Alliance (VCAA) and environmental experts Genee and SmartCarbon. The VCAA is a group of organisations based in North East England wanting to engage, inspire and support others in the VCSE sector to take climate action, support nature and support our people and communities through the transition to a brighter future.
Key achievements
Here are some of the ways in which everyone at Emmaus North East is working to become more sustainable.
- We have aligned our KPI’s and social impact to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals
- We have expanded our companion numbers since 2023 by 70%
- We have an Action Plan in place until 2030 to achieve net zero
- We monitor our carbon footprint on a monthly basis
- We review our Environmental & Sustainability Policy on an annual basis
- We have supported 10% more people in Lucie’s Laundry since 2024
- We have started to recycle our food waste and developed a composting project with The Little Onion Club
- We use eco-friendly products in all of our homes and social enterprises
- We review the energy efficiency in our properties on an annual basis
- We sell more pre-loved items than ever
- We continue to promote our Recycle and Reuse Project in the Workshop.
