"Creating vibrant sustainable communities where people want to live and work"

How we do it 

At McInerney Homes we pride ourselves on our relationships with the communities in which we work and from which we recruit our people. Hence, we recognise our Corporate Social Responsibility commitments in its various aspects including employees, general public, the built environment, our clients, financial institutions, insurers and other interested parties.We reflect these commitments in a family of policies and procedures which relate to:

• Environment
• Health and Safety
• Customer Relationships
• Staff recruitment, conditions, training and development
• Supplier evaluation and Management

We recognise that our business activities have positive and negative direct and indirect impacts on the society in which we operate. We endeavour to manage these to the best of our ability in a responsible manner, understanding that sound and demonstrable performance in relation to corporate social responsibility polices and practices is a fundamental part of business success.

We are committed to continuous improvement in our corporate social responsibility programme and encourage our supply chains such as subcontractors and materials suppliers to strive for matching performance.

With input from our staff and all stakeholders we will continue to develop this policy for social responsibility to benefit all affected by McInerney’s operations.

People are our most valuable Assets 

People

At McInerney Homes, we strive to achieve best value and excellence in performance across all aspects of our operations to ensure customer satisfaction, business growth and employee fulfillment and, ultimately, shareholder return. McInerney’s success is built on maximising the talents, skill sets and expertise of our employees to deliver excellence to our customers, the communities in which we operate and to our shareholders. Our highly trained staff are a tremendous asset to our business and we support their ongoing development through training programmes. We value their immense contribution to providing high quality homes for all our customers to enjoy.

Equal Opportunities and Diversity

McInerney is committed to equality of opportunity, combating unlawful discrimination and harassment, and encouraging diversity amongst our workforce. Our aim is that our workplace will be truly representative of all sections of society and each employee feels respected and able to give their best. The Company forbids all forms of harassment, including that committed by third parties, and seeks to ensure that we are providing a rewarding and progressive working environment for all its employees. We are committed to ensuring that all of our employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities in respect of equal opportunities as applicable to their job roles.

Health,Safety and the Environment

At McInerney, we have an integrated Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Management System which all of our subsidiaries work to. This management system meets the requirements of OHSAS 18001 and ISO14001 and, indeed, one of our subsidiaries, Hargreaves Contracting, is OHSAS 18001 accredited. We have a target to achieve accreditation in our other subsidiaries in 2010.

The Health and Safety of our customers, subcontractors, residents, personnel and any stakeholder affected by our activities is of paramount importance to us. The McInerney SHE function carries out regular inspections and audits of all our sites. These inspections and audits are all performed electronically and allow us to analyse our performance on a ‘real time’ basis. This system allows us to target our resources most effectively to ensure we are managing our SHE performance at its optimal level at all times.

We are extremely proactive in terms of SHE and our SHE function are quick to act on the results from any of our site interventions to ensure an issue doesn’t become an accident or incident, wherever possible.

We undertake an extensive training programme with our employees, including: office safety, environmental awareness, scaffold awareness, site waste management plans, the management system and traffic management. 

Where possible, we will liaise with local schools and colleges wherever we develop and the SHE function will give short talks to the students, aimed at their specific age group.

Many of our social housing contracts operate under the ‘Considerate Constructors’ scheme, this involves being audited by them. This provides us and our stakeholders with the assurance that our sites are operating to a good external standard.

All of our sites have not only a CDM plan on them, as required by Statute, but we also have a Site Waste Management Plan on every site which ensures that we are dealing with our construction waste in a responsible manner which minimises the impact our activities have on the environment. We are also currently working with a number of governmental organisations to undertake reviews of our resource efficiency.

We have won a British Safety Council ‘International Safety Award’ for the past two years and currently hold the ROSPA Silver Award. All of our subsidiaries are CHAS approved.

Sustainable Construction Techniques.

Housing development which minimises the impact on the environment is extremely important given the increasing focus on climate change. McInerney Homes embraces the need to use modern sustainable methods of construction is currently developing a group environmental policy which meets the standards set by BS EN ISO 14401. In our developments we aim to demonstrate that environmentally friendly design can positively impact on the quality of life by protecting and enhancing our environment now and in the future

To improve environmental performance we:

• adopt sustainable environmental practices within our own environmental operations and through our suppliers and partners:

• train our personnel, enhancing awareness of relevant environmental issues:

• reuse and recycle wherever possible in central offices

• comply with (preferably exceeding) requirements of appropriate environmental legislation;

• partnership working with supply chain promoting sustainable product sourcing;

• aim to continually improve

We aim to demonstrate sustainable development including:

• considering the long-term environmental impact of our buildings and the systems contained within them

• using BRE Best Practice Guidance (code for sustainable homes/ BREEAM as applicable) targeting an excellent rating or equivalent

• ensuring our buildings are flexible and adaptable

• improving energy, water and materials efficiency;

• using renewable energy and combined heat and power systems;

• providing recycling facilities;

• reducing CO2 emissions;

• using renewable or recyclable materials

We aim to demonstrate sustainability during construction:

• reducing noise, dust, pollution and waste;

• reducing the need for transport;

• recycling water both during construction and occupation;

• using local materials and suppliers wherever viable

Using Local supply chains and Labour

Additionally we actively encourage the use of local supply chains and labour. McInerney Homes has a wide range of partnering agreements in place with supply partners and sub – contractors that are well established and offer best value. When selecting potential partners, we take a view on whether they can expand or adapt to suit our requirements.

Clearly for a major boost to construction activity, it is unlikely that local supply chains will be able to provide adequate support without some development. We have experience of working with small local sub – contractors in all UK regions and assisting them to manage an increase in workload. Through our partnering arrangements we work to gain a better understanding of skills shortages and assist them with their recruitment procedures to address these gaps.