Social Purpose and Sustainability at Horizon

At Horizon Platforms we are highly conscious that Sustainability and Social Purpose are of ever-increasing importance to our customers, as indeed they are to us as co-owners of our business. We are proud to demonstrate our commitment to quality and environmental management through retaining our ISO9001 and ISO14001 accreditations. To add to that, we have successfully transitioned from OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001 in Health and Safety Management, providing the Company with the triple crown of ISO accreditations.  Horizon also continues to hold IPAF Rental+ to Gold standard and have recently undergone our first EcoVadis sustainability assessment.

We are committed to doing everything we can to enhance our social purpose, become more sustainable and reduce our environmental impact.

Our People

As an employee-owned business, we prioritise our co-owners’ welfare. We regularly measure our success in this area using the Best Companies engagement model and have been awarded their two star “outstanding place to work” accreditation in 2022. We proactively work on the feedback from our co-owners to make Horizon an even more fantastic place to work. Last year we focused on addressing work-life balance feedback, and this year we focus on raising diversity awareness across our co-owner team.

Environment

Following our recent EcoVadis assessment, a working party is currently formulating a structured plan to assess and reduce our impact on the environment, including but not limited to carbon emissions, general resource usage and waste production.

Giving Something Back

We continue to strive to enhance our social purpose through supporting our local communities. We have a Charity & Volunteering Policy which encourages each co-owner to volunteer their time and effort to support local initiatives. We also select a partner charity each year, voted for by our co-owners, and proactively organise a number of fundraising activities, with the proceeds donated to our chosen charity.

"We were delighted our procedures held up so strongly"

Our fleet mix has been focused on low-emissions machines for a number of years, but we wanted to ‘take the temperature’ of where we were as a business and look at our impact more holistically. A strong sense of social purpose and sustainability has always been part of what we do, but we wanted a benchmark from a third party. EcoVadis were an ideal partner for this approach, with a tried and tested framework.


Adrian Bleasdale

Chief Executive Officer

"We're committed to Environmental Management"

Environmental management is standard at Horizon Platforms, and we're committed to third-party auditing through ISO 14001. We believe in sustainable business - after all we only have one planet. Our fleet is primarily electric battery powered machines, and we make sure that as much as possible, we mitigate our impact.


Ben Hirst

Founder

Social Purpose Initiatives at Horizon

Volunteering at Wakefield Hospice

Taking their annual volunteering day as a group, our fabulous Sales team were put to work externally in the gardens and surrounding areas of Wakefield Hospice. Undertaking jobs such as some much-needed weeding around the pathways and car park areas, helping to make outdoor area look neat and tidy for the residents, visitors and staff. The Sales team all thoroughly enjoyed their time at Wakefield Hospice, especially as they could spend the time together as a team giving something back and doing jobs that the Hospice struggled to get done or to get people to do. All said they found it rewarding, enjoyed doing some gardening, and appreciated doing it together as a team. Matt even said he might offer up his services out of working hours in the future ... watch this space!

Time for a Cuppa for Dementia UK

The co-owner team were delighted to take part in the 'Time for a Cuppa' initiative for our chosen charity, Dementia UK. Representatives from all departments were involved in providing cakes, biscuits and other goodies for staff to enjoy, raising a tidy £157.67. All that hard work baking brought about a great result for a great cause.

How are we doing? 

Social Purpose KPIs

Employee Turnover

17.72% (% of employee turnover in previous 12 months)

Diversity: Gender

38% Female and 62% Male (total co-owner team)

Diversity: Manager Training

17 of our managers have been trained in diversity & inclusion awareness

Contracted Hours of Work

13% part time, 87% full time

Employee Engagement

Best Companies 2-Star accreditation

Social Benefits: Health Plan

100% eligible and 100% membership uptake

Social Benefits: Pension Scheme

100% eligible and 93.6% membership uptake

Employee Ownership

91% of employees are co-owners of the business

Sickness Absence

1.74% working days lost to sickness (2.2% working days lost = national average in 2021 (ONS))

Charity Money Raised

2021 total: £6,566 for Cancer Research UK

Charity Money Raised

2022 total: £5,434.67 for Dementia UK

Environmental KPIs

Total Recycled Waste

We recycled 36.5% of our waste

Vehicle MPG

Our average vehicle mpg was 10.3mpg

Electricity Usage

We used 194,786 kWh of electricity.

Gas Usage

We used 39,039 kWh of gas.

Carbon Intensity by Number of Staff

14.9 Tonnes CO2e per person

Carbon Intensity by Annual Turnover

0.052 Kg CO2e per pound

Carbon Intensity by Floorspace

0.8 Tonnes CO2e per square metre