How flexible offices are supporting ESG: Q&A with Uncommon

As part of our series to find out how flexible office providers are addressing ESG (Environmental Social Governance) within their spaces we caught up with Laura Shields, Sales Director, at Uncommon to find out more.

Tell us a bit about your business / offer

We make exceptional spaces for work. Workspaces full of positive energy, where you and your ambition are really well looked after. Our vision is to create truly sustainable, design led and people centric spaces for our members, teams, and partners to thrive in.

Are you addressing sustainability in the way you operate your business, and if yes what does this include for you?

Yes, sustainability and ethical business have always been our core values and this is why we have developed our environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy, setting ambitious market-leading targets. We have identified 5 key areas we’re focusing on, which include: improving our climate impact, working in more sustainable buildings, collaborate with ethical suppliers, promoting diversity, opportunities & wellbeing of our people and supporting our members to create a positive impact.

Since launching the strategy in 2022, we have made big progress and we’re so proud of it! We’ve achieved the PAS 2060 carbon neutrality standard, reduced our operational emissions, and reduced waste and plastic use across our sites. We’ve also developed a supplier code of conduct, introduced wellbeing programs to support our teams and engaged with charity partners. We became B Corp certified! Plus we have many more ambitious plans for this year and beyond.

Are you addressing environmental, social and governance issues equally or focussing more on one of these areas?

Our strategy covers all the areas of ESG and we’re putting effort to ensure we drive initiatives across all of them equally. From an environmental standpoint, being a freehold owner and operator of our buildings gives us a big advantage within the market and allows us to constantly re-invest in the spaces and make them more and more sustainable.

As a part of your work on sustainability, have you set a net zero target? If yes what does your commitment include and what have been the main challenges so far?

We have been working with a third party (Inhabit) to start making advancements towards a net zero strategy to complete by 2025, with a goal to be a net zero business across scope 1, 2 and selected scope 3 by 2027. We are proud to say we’re currently carbon neutral across the business.

Is consideration of sustainability affecting your long-term strategic planning e.g. site selection?

Yes, all our future growth decisions, including the site selection, will have to be fully in line with our sustainability strategy and the responsibilities we’ve committed to as a B Corp business.

Are any of your clients/occupiers asking you about sustainability? If yes what are they asking about?

It’s a hot topic! To really engage with members, we host quarterly in-person sessions with our members across each location. Those sessions cover all different topics and are a platform to ensure we can help where we can and offer a network of other likeminded clients to share their experiences and learn from each other. As more and more of our members are interested in sustainability information, from data on the buildings operations to where we buy our coffee, we also support them in providing that data. On top of that, all our members receive a monthly sustainable living guide in a form of newsletter with easy to implement everyday tips and sustainability information.

Since becoming B Corp certified, we’ve had a whole wave of members interested in starting their own applications – we’re so happy to be able to support them in their own B Corp journeys too!

Do you think sustainability has been fully embraced by the flexible office sector? If not, what do you think are the barriers?

I don’t think it has, it’s a discussion point but many of the buildings are on leased or managed deals which mean they can’t be in control of what systems the buildings are using. Clients are demanding more from their suppliers and so they should.

Suppliers can change what’s in their control such as the social impact and the internal governance but also pushing back to landlords and working collaboratively with them to make a change.

It is really important that the brokers and agents also join us in this journey. Sustainability is such a wide subject that keeps evolving and so it’s all about working closely with us, providers, having access to the transparent and clear information and keep educating themselves so they can really advise the clients well in that area.

What more can be done? 

So much more! We’re committed to putting ESG at the centre of everything we do. To be proactive. To identify and spearhead solutions. To contribute positively to the challenges facing our world.

For us, it’s means making the buildings more and more sustainable. Keep teaming up with like-minded partners. Keep finding people and organisations who inspire us. Keep working do do better, for our community and our planet.

Everything is a work-in-progress!

Explore Uncommon's workspaces in Liverpool Street and Holborn.