Our communities
Our approach
The communities in which we operate matter deeply to us. We believe that being a good neighbour is an integral component of our sustainability strategy; our social licence to operate.
Over the course of 2024, we were delighted to have continued working closely with our five charitable partnerships. We have built strong relationships with our charity partners and worked closely to support them, financially and practically, along with developing employee engagement opportunities and learning around different social issues; poverty, dementia, mental health, cancer, and special educational needs as well as supporting mainstream education from primary to higher education and community sport.
Looking ahead
We will continue our commitment to support local charities and have selected our four new charity partners for 2025, based in and around the North East of Scotland. Over the course of each partnership, our aim is to build strong relationships with each charity; commit our time to volunteering, fundraising, supporting initiatives and attending charitable events. We will offer financial support, as well as providing our teams with rewarding volunteering opportunities.
Case Study: VSA
2024 marks two years of our corporate partnership with VSA. Over the last year, we have continued to build a close and strong relationship with the team at VSA and our partnership has flourished.
We have seen significant commitment from our employees to support our work with VSA and our pledge to support Linn Moor School, an Aberdeenshire residential school which provides specialist education for some of Scotland’s most vulnerable children and young people living with complex and additional support needs.
Our teams volunteered to create the Ithaca ‘Sensory’ Garden, clearing ground, erecting fences and planting shrubs and trees, designed to stimulate students’ senses – touch, taste, and sound – using different plants and materials which help the children with their cognitive, emotional, physical, social and communication development.
We have supported initiatives from tea parties and choirs, endurance events such as rowing challenges, golf days, the Kilt Walk, the London Marathon, Run Balmoral and Aberdeenshire Enduro, and social events such as our Burns’ Supper and two charity balls – side by side with VSA staff and volunteers.
Case study: Maggie's Centre
We supported the charity in 2024 with an initial donation of £20,000 and rolled out various fundraising initiatives, including Christmas Jumper Day, Wear it Pink Day, jail or bail, fire walks, Christmas Card sales, sponsoring Maggie’s annual ball and volunteering for their culture crawl.
We hosted an Ovarian Cancer in the Workplace session alongside Maggie’s Cancer Support Specialists who offered advice, support and helped our employees learn more about the impact of cancer in the workplace. In 2024 we were delighted to sponsor and attend their Orange Ball and made a further end of year donation of £20,000.
Case Study: AberNecessities
In 2024, we supported AberNecessities, a children’s charity dedicated to supporting children from birth to 18 years of age, living in extreme poverty. Our staff choose to support AberNecessities in different ways during the year including collecting and sorting preloved clothes, donating to their annual Giving Tree, and packing Christmas Eve boxes at their HQ.
Our Technology and Innovation team offered their time and valuable expertise to the charity, supporting the charities IT systems development, as well as providing a donation of £5,000 towards new IT equipment.
With 1 in 5 children living in poverty across Aberdeen city and shire, it was important for us to support their ‘Believing in Magic’ Christmas campaign.
We donated £28,000 and volunteering support to help to bring magic to many children in our community this Christmas. Our six volunteering teams worked extremely hard at their Christmas HQ, from counting and costing donations, to sorting and organising the gifts and making up the Christmas Eve boxes. Our volunteers found the experience heart-warming, thought provoking, inspiring and left feeling overwhelmed by the generosity of our staff and local community.
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