Impact
In-site Investing for Impact
We have a long history of supporting the communities we work in. It is very much part of what we do.
This might mean sponsoring our local sports club, working with the Two Ridings Community Foundation to identify impactful Yorkshire charitable work that we can donate to, or giving direct to the charities and community organisations who are close to our team’s hearts, like Veteran’s Woodcraft and Make It Wild.
In 2020 however, we created a new impact strategy to add to what we already do. We are going beyond ‘giving back’ and are exploring the many ways that our resources and assets can be put to greater work in solving some of the social and environmental problems that we see around us.
What is investing for impact?
- If you’re going to invest your money, then where possible can you invest in something that aligns with your values; even something that you think might just make the world better?
- Philanthropy is essential. But some social and environmental problems feel pretty entrenched. It can feel sometimes like we could try and stop the problems in the first place. Impact investing finds people and businesses who are intentionally working on solving these problems and invests in those people and their ideas.
There’s something key to it: you expect to see a reasonable financial return for the project. This is better for everyone involved as the relationship is more equal, and your role as an investor is important in engaging with the investee on the impact they deliver. Plus, returns can be re-invested to create more positive impact for the people in our community, or for our planet (preferably both!)
We’ve set up a new part of our organisation to deliver this strategy. We love trees and we’re always looking for opportunities to grow so this was a great opportunity to design a whole new branch of In-site.
The Impact Branch Ltd places people, our planet and profit on exactly the same level of importance. It will actively seek out opportunities to invest in projects and organisations that have solutions for societal and environmental problems, and that will generate a reasonable financial return for us.
We have some impact themes that are close to our hearts and ideally, we will always tap into what we know - property - but we are not fixed in what we’ll invest in. And of course, this branch of our organisation is part of the mighty Cedar of Lebanon that represents the growth mindset of everyone at In-site Property Ltd.
Here are some of our projects:
Take a look at some of the projects we have invested in to help make an impact.
We are playing our part in UK carbon reduction. Working with Make It Wild, we have offset our carbon output for the last 5 years. As well as offsetting our carbon output, we are currently doing due diligence on a number of rewilding and renewable energy businesses.
Veterans Woodcraft
Starting with our roots, we are seeking out ways that units on our sites can be let to social enterprises, either as ‘meanwhile space’ or more permanently. We’d like to start including some non-financial support for these enterprises too, by connecting them with our network. We are working with social enterprise incubators to see how we could catalyse early stage social entrepreneurship in our spaces.
We are working with Two Ridings Community Foundation who are committed to social change. We aim to complement their philanthropic donations with impact investment.
We continue to support a number of community sporting activities and charities such as Wooden Spoon, Wharfedale RUFC and North Leeds Cricket Club.
Our association with Wharfedale RUFC as joint main sponsors could not be a better match of values and ethics. We like to think we work as a team in a very similar way to that of the players and coaches at Wharfedale, with honesty and integrity, whilst enjoying ourselves.
Website: http://www.northleedscc.co.uk