We’ll be looking at housing and particularly the work of housing associations over the next couple of weeks. In our first blog of three on the theme Ronnie Clawson from Riverside talks about Corporate Social Responsibility and how integral it is to Riverside’s business.

By Ronnie Clawson, Executive Director of Corporate Services, Riverside

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) sits at the core of Riverside’s purpose as a housing charity and is integral to our business. It strengthens our reputation as a responsible, ethical organisation and provides an opportunity for deeper and more meaningful engagement with our employees. CSR also allows best practice to be shared through peer-groups, such as the Sustainable Homes Index for Tomorrow (SHIFT) and other like-minded organisations outside the social housing sector like Business in The Community, Seddons (construction and maintenance specialists), and Liverpool Echo Arena.

Riverside’s 2012/13 CSR report updates the objectives we set ourselves, outlining some key successes and what we have planned. We continue to work against the four impact areas of; community, environment, workplace and marketplace.

Some of Riverside’s recent CSR achievements include:

• Extensive fundraising by staff – from people in all parts of the Group raising over £46,000 for the Alzheimer’s society, and more than £61,000 for other charities.
• CSR achievements have been endorsed by accolades and awards – gaining Silver in SHIFT for the second consecutive year, a national award for our affordable warmth work into which we invested funding of £3.8m, as well as winning a regional sustainability Chamber of Commerce award.
• We also worked with the Alzheimer’s Society to increase Dementia awareness amongst staff and customers, with Riverside signing up to the national Dementia Action Alliance.
• As a business, Riverside has committed to achieving a number of CSR targets, including zero waste to landfill in our Head Office, and 50% of all office purchases to be sustainably sourced by 2016.

CSR is woven into everything Riverside does and has become more important than ever as we grapple with sustained welfare reform, public expenditure cuts, rising energy costs, and the impact on the people we seek to help.

Through our CSR reporting, we have been conscious of the need to minimise the impact on the environment and have taken advantage of the available communication channels. By using our website and social media as well as our internal channels to share successes with customers and other stakeholders, we have sought to spread our message widely whilst printing fewer copies of a shorter report.

To see more detail of how Riverside does CSR, go to our website: http://www.riverside.org.uk/corporate/about_us/information_about_riverside/corporate_responsibility.aspx

Please note: the opinions in this article do not necessarily represent the views of The Knowledge Exchange or its parent company Idox.