We all know that building a sustainable future requires a step change for all of us and with it an evolution of our home and work environments. With COP26 happening it is a perfect time to reflect on what we are all doing as businesses to play our part in combatting climate change and building stronger communities.

Our Winchester Office sits in the centre of the city. St Paul’s House has been at the heart of Winchester for decades and LCP have been there since 1996. In 2018 we moved out and commenced a redevelopment project in conjunction with the landlord. We had decided that the office needed to be modernised to be able to cater to our growing workforce. This summer we opened our doors on the new, improved and greener St Paul’s House.

We recently announced that LCP will be operationally Net Zero from this year and we took this commitment seriously when making decisions for our Winchester office.

Creating a greener and more flexible workplace

We worked closely with the landlord’s developers and our team of architects and design consultants to fit out the office with environmental efficiency in mind. Some of the measures we undertook were:

• Installing solar panels and on the path towards using renewable energy providers.
• Including electrical charging points in our car park and increasing our bike storage space to encourage colleagues to cycle to work.
• Upgrading the insulation and installing double-glazing
• Our “Green Champions” network find ways to actively encourage environmentally friendly office practices and ensure our supplier partnerships are as green as possible.
• Installing sensor LED lighting with them aim of minimising the use of energy in areas where people are not currently situated
• Using air-source heat pumps for heating, and heat recovery technology for air ventilation

The pandemic has of course taken us into a new territory of flexible working and has shown us that people do not always need to be in one physical space and working set hours to do their job well. Our new office has been designed for that flexibility with open spaces to promote the collaboration that modern offices now need.

Supporting our local community

Sustainability is about more than just keeping down emissions. As our Winchester office grows to 300 and beyond, we believe it is important and appropriate that we play a significant role in our community to keep it thriving. We are doing this through volunteering, building local relationships and charitable giving.

• We have a strong partnership with Trinity Winchester who do amazing work to address homelessness and vulnerability in Winchester. With the pandemic exacerbating poverty their work has become more important than ever. We support the charity through our charitable foundation and were pleased this year to be able to give them a Covid grant to support them with the extra work they are doing, as well as providing volunteer support.
• We have a long-standing relationship with Naomi House, and the LCP team had great fun running one of the refreshment stations for the Clarendon Way Walk earlier this year.
• We have donated to several other fantastic charities in Hampshire such as Rose Road Association which supports children and young adults with disabilities, SCRATCH which gives support to families in poverty and Hampshire Search and Rescue which helps to search for vulnerable missing people.
• We provided reconditioned laptops to local schools to help with remote learning during the early part of the pandemic.

Winchester is a thriving place with lots going on. As normality creeps back, it is great that we have also been able to sponsor some fantastic and popular local events such as the annual Round Table Fireworks display and the Clarendon Way Marathon.

The future’s bright

We are delighted to be back once again in the centre of Winchester and look forward to playing an active role in helping make the city greener and supporting our community.