At a time when the number of people who are homeless continues to rise and cities are full of empty office buildings sitting vacant and serving nobody, it is great to see one company thinking creatively about how they can utilise their space to deliver positive social impact alongside normal business operations.
Waitrose in Bromley is working with Age UK, offering their cafe area, plus tea, coffee and platefuls of biscuits as a convenient meeting space for Age UK clients to chat with volunteers and partners (staff) from the John Lewis Partnership. The cost to the business is negligible but the social impact is huge.
Delivering positive social impact
I photographed a ‘Hub’ meeting that takes place in the Bromley branch of Waitrose, although opening-up space for community initiatives happens across the John Lewis and Waitrose estate and is just one strand of their commitment to positive social impact.
“Having a hub meeting on a Monday gives people something to look forward to on Sunday. It gives the week structure and purpose, which is important for our clients” explained Yvonne who co-ordinates the ‘Friendship Hub’ meetings that help to combat loneliness, promote physical activity and introduce like-minded people to each other. On the day I observed the group were planning a day out to the beach, among other things.
George is 89 years old and remembers being a child during the Blitz before his eventual evacuation to Leicester. Today, he is fascinated by the natural world and watches endless documentaries, particularly about the deep-ocean and the Colossal Squid.
Barbara’s career was spent teaching and she clearly loved it. Now she’d like to write a book about her observations; reflecting on nature vs nurture and the behavioural traits she saw in children that were unknowingly influenced by parents, status and geography.
The conversation was lively, the tea flowed, the biscuits were enjoyed and there was a lot of laughter. This was made possible because Waitrose made a conscious decision to use its space for positive social impact and support Age UK to deliver local objectives.
In another part of the community the John Lewis Partnership was delivering more positive social impact but this time for primary school children.
There’s an advert on TV which has been around for a while and encourages people with skills to ‘teach part-time in further education and change lives without changing your career’. The John Lewis Partnership have adopted the same approach but are working with their stakeholders and partners to run lessons and workshops in schools. Retail is not just about the shopfloor, there are a host of skills and professionals required to build and operate a retail business. On the day I attended the pupils were being taught about architecture, landscape architecture and how they work together for the benefit of the community.
Neatly positioned as a constructive way to think about the possibilities for drawing skills, the pupils were introduced to master planning and how a neighbourhood is designed, which included designing their own with all the facilities they would like to see included.
The government states: According to one estimate commissioned by the National Housing Federation (NHF) and Crisis from Heriot-Watt University, around 340,000 new homes need to be supplied in England each year, of which 145,000 should be affordable.
Therefore, it’s vital that young people consider the property sector as a career. It’s a crisis that will require imagination, innovation and skills to fix, which means that all of us are reliant on future generations to shape the towns and cities that we live in and ensure they meet our changing needs; and a changing climate.
In the space of a few days I witnessed how the John Lewis Partnership were inspiring the young and helping an older generation to laugh. That’s positive social impact and something more businesses should be doing.
