Mitie hits all annual ESG targets

Mitie is on track to meet net zero carbon by 2025. The release of the company’s annual ESG report shows that all 13 targets, which form part of its social value framework have been achieved or exceeded.

Spanning Mitie’s People, Environment, People, Community and Supply Chain pillars, the primary focuses outlined in the report include renewable energy sourcing and decarbonisation, fostering a responsible supply chain, investing in skills, supporting colleague wellbeing and creating employment opportunities through The Mitie Foundation.

As part of Mitie’s Plan Zero initiative, emissions intensity has been reduced by a substantial 43 per cent, with nine of Mitie’s sites now fully decarbonised, as the business works towards a target of net zero operations by 2025.

More than a third of the Mitie fleet has now been transitioned to electric vehicles (EVs), with the fleet growing by 1,133 EVs over the past year. Mitie’s mission is to help decarbonise Britain by offering joined-up solutions to customers from optimising buildings through energy efficiency, transitioning fleets to EV and installing electric charging points, sourcing and producing clean energy for operations, installing solar panels, promoting the circular economy through its resourceful waste business and driving biodiversity by installing and maintaining green spaces.

Environmental highlights this year include Mitie’s joined-up contract with Essex County Council saving 534 tonnes of CO2 annually through solar panel installations, retrofitting buildings and LED projects. In total Mitie has saved 24 customers 375,000 tonnes of carbon f across 800 sites and prevented the use of 40,000 plastic bin liners and 600kg of plastic through its Bin the Bag initiative.

Meanwhile Mitie continues to champion skills across the organisation, investing £7.3 million in apprenticeships since 2017. Mitie’s apprenticeship strategy focuses on three key areas – skilling new young talent including school leavers and first jobbers, upskilling colleagues to offer on-going development for career progression and reskilling people in the external job market to gain new skills and qualifications. Mitie now has more than 1,000 apprentices learning their trade across 55 programmes, from quantity surveying, engineering, cyber security, and carpentry to legal, sales, HR and horticulture, putting Mitie on track to meet its target of five per cent of employees coming through apprenticeship programmes by 2025.

Through The Mitie Foundation, this year Mitie colleagues have contributed a total of 14,650 hours of volunteering to good causes including the launch of The Big Mitie Litter Pick with colleagues collecting more than 1,500 bags of litter to help clean up public spaces across Britain. Through the Ready2Work programme, which aims to drive skills and create employment opportunities for a range of jobseekers who experienced barriers to entry when seeking employment, 536 candidates have gained hands on work experience, with 70 per cent securing a job afterwards.

As part of Mitie’s responsible supplier strategy, Mitie has also doubled its voluntary, charity and social enterprise supplier (VCSE) spend in the past year, as part of a procurement transformation to tackle inequality and increase supply chain resilience and capacity. Mitie has committed to increase its spend with VCSEs to £2.25m by 2025 and has already achieved 50% of that goal. The business will also increase percentage spend with SMEs to 33% by 2025, aiming to issue more regional tenders and work with local SMEs for supplier contracts.

Mitie also joined Minority Supplier Development UK (MSDUK), the UK’s leading supplier diversity organisation to allow diverse suppliers access to procurement opportunities whilst also ensuring Mitie’s supply chain promotes diversity and inclusion.

Jason Roberts, Director of Sustainability, Mitie, said: “As a business we have taken great strides to decarbonise our own operations, develop our people, promote diversity and inclusion, and buy responsibly, ensuring we remain on track to reach our 13 ambitious ESG goals by 2025.

“We remain committed to our industry-leading net zero emissions target – 25 years ahead of the UK Government’s 2050 target and are harnessing that expertise to make a tangible difference to our customers by driving decarbonisation projects across Britain. ESG is now fully integrated into Mitie’s business practices to lead how we deliver our services to customers and drive social value across our operations.”