It is our intention to make the most ethical purchases possible without significantly compromising the cost or quality of service.

In 2005, we analysed our purchasing policy by identifying the sectors in which we spent more than £10,000 last year, and on which we consider we can have a significant impact through our purchasing decisions. The table below shows the results of that analysis and lists the principal suppliers that we use for that sector.

As a result of this analysis, we identified seven areas in which we could and should improve our ethical purchasing practice. So far, we have made the following progress in these areas:

Cleaning
The office cleaning sector is characterised by low wages and poor employment conditions. In London this has been the subject of a campaign run by London Citizens (www.livingwage.org.uk) and supported by the Mayor of London.
Cleaners in London are paid a wage too low to provide adequately for themselves and their families. In addition, cleaners are required to work anti-social hours and job security and staff benefits are very poor. The problem is exacerbated by the low profit margins in the industry, making it difficult for cleaning firms to charge their clients more for their services.

In London, we have employed Via3 (www.greenyouroffice.co.uk) to clean Development House and the Grayston Centre. Via3 pay a living wage and use ecological cleaning products.

In Bristol, Leeds and Brighton, we have switched from contracted services to putting cleaners onto our payroll. This ensures that we can guarantee a living wage, offer greater job security and improve working conditions, for example introducing daytime cleaning. These cleaners also help with property management issues such as checking security arrangements are kept up and turning off lights and appliances. In the coming year we plan to further extend these services.

Insurance
The insurance industry does not offer a wide range of ethical purchasing opportunities. One might be Ecclesiastical Insurance which is owned by Allchurches Trust Limited, a registered charity. An ethical choice of insurance reseller would be Naturesave (www.naturesave.co.uk) which gives 10% of premiums to a charitable trust to promote environmental projects.

This year we switched our property insurance cover to the Norwich Union and our insurance broker to Lucas Fettes as they were able to provide significantly more competitive quotes than other brokers. Although Norwich Union does not have a strong ethical focus as a company, it has both an environmental and human rights policy and a socially responsible investment strategy, providing a range of ethical investment funds through its fund management arm Morley Fund Management, themselves investors in the company.

Security
There is little awareness of ethical issues within the security industry. However we have chosen to prioritise local suppliers where possible. 75% of our purchases came through local suppliers last year.

Telephone and internet lines
Although we purchase all telephone calls for ourselves and our tenants through the Phone Co-Op, a total of over £70,000 worth of business a year, we have for the time being chosen not to purchase our telephone and internet lines, worth £30,000 a year, through the Phone Co-Op. This is because most of our lines are on fixed term contracts, and the savings gained by switching the others would be very small. In addition these services are anyway purchased by the Phone Co-Op from BT and other major suppliers and we consider that the extra difficulties we would incur by having to deal with faults indirectly, plus the risk of loss of service across the whole network if all our lines are with one supplier, outweighs the benefits that could be achieved.

Credit cards
Our credit cards are supplied by the Royal Bank of Scotland, as it is the clearing bank for Triodos Bank. We are greatly concerned with the Royal Bank's ethical record due to their involvement in financing a number of environmentally damaging gas and oil projects around the world.

We have made Triodos aware of the problem and they are investigating a solution. One option is that Triodos may be able to provide a guarantee to another credit card provider so that we can both continue to hold our current accounts with Triodos and hold our credit cards with a more ethical supplier.

Property maintenance and refurbishment
Last year we undertook detailed research into the full range of property maintenance products we use on a regular basis. This is being produced as a manual for property managers on paints, floor coverings, office furniture, plumbing, sanitary and cleaning materials. The guide is still in draft form.

We have not undertaken any major refurbishments over the past year; however in 2007 we do expect to undertake at least one extensive office refurbishment as well as building several eco-houses. In preparation for this, Senior Property Manager Peter Allen underwent training and qualified as an assessor for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method for offices.

We have started to prepare more detailed briefs for architects that include environmental and ethical specification requirements before design work commences. We have also commissioned architects with stronger environmental credentials such as Architecture00 for the extension to the Grayston Centre and BBM Sustainable Design Ltd (www.bbm-architects.co.uk) for the feasibility study to build eco-houses in Oxford.

Energy
With energy prices rising steeply and an increasingly wide range of renewable energy products now available on the market, we are likely to move away from Good Energy this year. We have spent some time researching the options and evaluating which best meet our environmental, social and financial standards. We expect in future to be supplied by Scottish and Southern's renewable energy tariff, Ecotricity or Green Energy.

The Ethical Property Company, The Old Music Hall, 106-108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE
Tel: 01865 207810 Local calls 0845 458 3853 Fax: 01865 207828 Email Us
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