Social Value - Civic Engineers

Inspiring Others

At Civic Engineers we inspire future engineers and technicians in four key ways:

Environmental Commitment

As part of our Environmental Management we have committed to the following objectives:

Reduce Civic Engineers’ carbon footprint

We have introduced a number of initiatives to achieve this goal such as a Green Warrior group who are responsible for coordinating our efforts to improve our green credentials in each of our studios. We encourage staff to walk, cycle or use public transport for their commutes to work and do not have a fleet of vehicles; we positively try to reduce the amount of travel required for meetings by making effective use of Skype and other forms of video conferencing. All our 4 Studios are purposely located in easy access to a train/tube or metro station and have facilities to store bikes and showers to use after a cycle ride to work.

We have also signed up for a Green energy audit to look at ways in which we can reduce our energy consumption in each of the studios.

Reduce Waste and Improve Recycling

Recycling is an easy way that individuals and teams can make a difference to improve our environmental credentials. Each of the studios offer recycling facilities for food, plastic, cardboard and paper; employees are widely encouraged to recycle their waste. We have also committed to reduce the usage of non-disposable cups and actively encourage employees to use reusable cups instead. Additionally, defunct electrical items and printer cartridges are also recycled. We also try to reduce the amount of packaging for any deliveries that are made and also try to select local suppliers who do not have far to travel. It is important to us that our suppliers also take their environmental responsibilities seriously.

Volunteering and Charity

We offer paid volunteering leave as part of our employee benefits package. This takes the form of either 2-days of volunteering in the UK or a week of volunteering abroad. Most notably one of our employees went to Uganda for a week to work on the construction of a health, wellbeing and education centre in Uganda.

Engineers often volunteer within schools and universities to help children and students gain an understanding of Civil and Structural engineering. This scope of volunteering includes tutoring master’s engineering students, providing practical engineering support and mentoring to undergraduate students, attending a KS2 STEM event, organising engineering initiatives in primary schools, giving talks to undergraduate students, and acting as a literacy mentor to primary school students.

The sporty ones amongst us always participate in a number of gruelling sporting challenges throughout the year to raise money for different charities. Each year there is always a 10k to be run.

This has included our teams taking part in the Manchester 10k to raise funds for Derian House Children’s Hospice, Men’s 10k in Glasgow to change the low levels of life expectance for men in Scotland and raise awareness around mental health problems, and the British Heart Foundation 10k in London. In addition, there have been cycle rides, treks and triathlons to name but a few to support various charities.

Each year we support the Christmas Jumper Day for Save The Children by not only donning our festive jumpers, but also holding bake sales, offering Christmas present wrapping services and other activities to raise additional funds.