Corporate Social Responsibility
SACO's core value is to treat people as we would like people to treat us. This principle guides the business and ensures we work in partnership with our staff, our clients, our guests, our suppliers and the wider community. Corporate Social Responsibility is important to us and underpins the way we have always managed our business. We believe in quality, value, service and trust. These basic principles make sound business sense, helping us to win business, recruit and train the best people, build strong partnerships with all our suppliers and create best value for our customers. We believe passionately that a business succeeds because people enjoy working for it, so we also want to have fun and enjoy every working day.
SACO supports pioneering AfriKids charity
As a part of its responsibility to the wider community SACO has chosen to support Afrikids, a grass roots child development charity working in Northern Ghana. Their work addresses the many problems facing children in rural areas and cities. They want to put the lives of children who have suffered unnecessary hardships back on track and wherever possible prevent those hardships happening again or in the first place. Providing quality housing, which can be the basis of a decent standard of living, is fundamental to their work.
Because SACO's business is 'accommodation', it seemed right that the company and employees should work together to provide housing and support to a group of young people who have the greatest potential to benefit.
SACO cleans up its act
SACO is introducing a series of measures throughout its serviced apartment network that aim to significantly reduce the impact that the business has on the environment. Many of these initiatives have been suggested by SACO's guests:
- firstly we really try to persuade people to think before they act and our Guest Information provides lots of helpful suggestions and information to encourage guests to change their daily habits
- we are reviewing the introduction of energy saving light bulbs
- we are phasing in the introduction of recycling facilities at each building
- we have introduced an environmentally aware purchasing policy for appliances, replacing old appliances with A rated equipment
- we re-cycle our surplus furniture by donating it to local charities
Eco-friendly construction
SACO is developing a series of eco-friendly serviced apartments at Harbourside in Bristol that will pave the way for the adoption of sustainable building standards in future developments. This major new initiative will see eco-friendly construction techniques being deployed throughout the development and heralds a new era in sustainable regeneration for the business. These new serviced apartments are scheduled to open in Spring 2009.
