The climate and the increased consciousness of all of our carbon footprints remains, quite rightly, firmly at the forefront of City Apartments’ and our clients’ Sustainability & CSR programs. And our clients’ commitment to reducing their carbon footprint has begun to shape many travel policies as well as focusing on their own supply chains to ensure their service partners are equally committed to the climate emergency. Well, we are delighted to say that we have quietly been a very ‘green’ company since our inception some 24 years ago. We are fairly unique in that we are located in one very small region within London, the financial district known as ‘the City’ or the ‘Square Mile’ owing to the fact it is quite literally a square mile! As such, we have always offered our guests a short walk to work which, whilst always very convenient for our guests (no expensive taxis or stuffy tube!), has become an even bigger factor as part of our clients’ audit of their travellers’ carbon footprints when travelling to work in their overseas offices. For the same reason, because we operate in such a geographically small area, it’s also meant we have never had the need for company vehicles, as our team members simply walk to each of our buildings to meet all our guests and to clean & maintain our apartments, restocking the apartments using trolleys and bicycles, etc.
Our 5 fully refurbished buildings have all fully embraced new technology and building methods as they have evolved over the years. These now underpin how we measure our relationship with the environment, and include such measures like central electrical lighting kill switches, solar pre-heating of water, comprehensive insulation/double glazing, total roll-out of LED lights, use of an ECO friendly heating/cooling system working at an amazing 400% efficiency, and of course a strict and ever-evolving recycling program.
We have worked very hard to find our own supplier partners who are equally as committed to sustainability measures as we are. Examples include the loo rolls in our apartments (supplied by “Serious Tissues”, who make the UK’s first carbon neutral loo paper) and the toiletries we provide (provided by sustainability champions, “L’Occitane”). And in our complimentary ‘Welcome Packs’, we now provide super-sustainable, fully recyclable re-usable cartons of water (supplied by “Carton Water”) and coffee roasted by “Old Spike Roastery”, who is a thriving social enterprise whose primary mission is to help reduce homelessness in the UK through training and employment within specialty coffee, who also plant a tree for every bag of coffee sold! But perhaps our biggest initiative is to partner with “Opus Energy”, to ensure that 100% of the electricity we use comes from renewable energy sources!
More recently we have made a conscious decision to try to partner with BCORP certified suppliers, these include our new partnership (2023) with Guarantee Laundry who service and provide all of our amazing bed linen and towels and our partnership with Delphis Eco, a multi award winning and multi sustainable accredited cleaning chemical company.
But that’s not the end! We continue to work very hard with our clients and supply partners to ensure we remain at the forefront of our sustainability journey!