How We Deliver More Sustainable Property Services For Social Housing

As local authorities respond to the climate emergency and housing associations seek to improve their sustainability performance, they look to their property services providers as key partners.

Osborne is stepping up to this challenge and aims to be a fully net zero carbon business by 2035. Across the company we are embracing initiatives such as flexible working and switching to electric and hybrid vehicles wherever possible. At present, when our people are choosing new company cars, 70% of new orders are either hybrid or fully electric.

A service like property maintenance doesn’t generate waste on anything like the scale of other parts of the construction industry. If anything, this makes us even more hyper-aware of how we handle the waste materials we do generate.

Sustainable Property Services

The overriding aim is to repair something rather than replace it. We aim to follow circular economy principles and keep products and materials in use wherever we can.

Waste materials are typically paint containers and packaging from components we replace. There are also the components we remove from properties during repairs and refurbishments, which could be anything from a few taps, to doors replaced to meet new fire regulations.

Segregated Waste

Whatever it is, it’s disposed of in segregated skips across all of our sites so that it’s easier for our waste broker, Reconomy, to handle. All of the waste destinations Osborne Property Services use have a minimum 93% recycling rate. This helps to support our longer-term goal across the company of ‘zero to landfill’.

By working with Reconomy we benefit from a comprehensive waste portal so that we can monitor everything closely and take steps to reduce our waste – from procurement through to service delivery. We are actively working towards the BES 6002 Ethical Labour Sourcing and ISO 20400 Sustainable Procurement standards.

The Road to Net Zero

Looking at the bigger picture, Osborne has developed a full service capability in the area of zero carbon retrofits. Having this capability in-house allows us to offer a fully integrated service so that work streams for retrofit can be coordinated with regular property services to achieve greater efficiency and reduce disruption for residents.

For more information about how Osborne makes property services more sustainable contact Jo Fletcher ([email protected]).