Overview
The Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation is dedicated to making Letchworth Garden City a great place to live, work, and visit. As the world’s first Garden City, Letchworth was created as a solution to the squalor and poverty of urban life in Britain during the late 19th century. The Foundation supports, funds, and delivers activities to benefit the local communities. These activities focus on environment, heritage, education, leisure, charities, and other charitable activities.
Business Case
The Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation partnered with Sustainable X to align sustainability goals, reduce risks, and drive long-term environmental and organisational impact. The Foundation sought to address key sustainability challenges. These included a lack of unified understanding or metrics for sustainability, perceived risks from asset ownership and regulatory/customer pressures, and the need for alignment for future funding opportunities, including lottery funding. Additionally, existing organisational KPIs were not linked with their sustainable outcomes. The Foundation aimed to create consistent metrics to measure sustainability impacts and to position themselves for future funding opportunities by aligning with sustainability goals. The Foundation’s ability to fund and support services depends on their property portfolio, making sustainability crucial to their charitable commitments.
Process
Sustainable X partnered with the Foundation to provide a structured and practical approach to sustainability. Key solutions included defining sustainability outputs and the resources needed to achieve them, as well as identifying gaps in the organisation’s structure, which led to the recruitment of a dedicated sustainability resource. A sustainability plan was developed that addressed climate risks, tenant needs, and funding alignment. The Foundation supported intelligent conversations with customers, tenants, and suppliers about sustainability goals and a lower-carbon economy . The Foundation hired a sustainability lead to drive initiatives.
Conclusion
The partnership between the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation and Sustainable X yielded several benefits. These include improved internal processes and clarity on sustainability priorities. The hiring of a sustainability lead to drive initiatives was another significant benefit. The partnership enhanced the organisation’s market positioning, enabling them to access funding opportunities and lead sustainability conversations. It also initiated positive impacts on land use, particularly with farming tenants, focusing on biodiversity and climate adaptation, and mitigated climate and customer behaviour risks by aligning with sustainability goals…. According to Graham Fisher, CEO at Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, Sustainable X provided the structure and clarity needed to align sustainability goals and address risks. The Foundation’s work also includes making homes more energy efficient.