Corporate Social Responsibility

Ethical Purchasing

CCT Venues spend several million pounds each year purchasing supplies and services, and gives preference to those sharing responsible practices. As such, we support sustainable attitudes, organic produce, and recyclable packaging. At all times, CCT Venues endeavour to minimise its impact on the local, national and global environment.

Our kitchens only ever use Free Range eggs from local farms, fish from sustainable sources and Red Tractor accredited chicken. Preference is always given to British meat, Fairtrade products, seasonal vegetables and local produce wherever possible.

For the required level of quality, the most environmentally friendly product or supplier will be selected.

We Commit to Always:

1. Buy local or UK-produce whenever possible;
2. Buy in bulk whenever possible;
3. Require suppliers to reduce packaging to a minimum;
4. Endeavour to ensure products sourced from overseas are fairly-traded or ethically produced;
5. Require potential suppliers to share a copy of their environmental policy;
6. Require suppliers to declare all circumstances where items are sourced from ‘unethical’ sources;
7. Review and visit suppliers regularly.

Accessibility Statement

CCT Venues believe that everyone should be treated the same and should receive the same high quality service and experience, no matter what their physical abilities or special requirements may be. We operate in mostly shared and in one historical Grade II listed building, so we have to work within any building imposed guidelines, but we are committed to ensuring that our venues are as accessible as possible for all and we will work with our clients, employees and visitors to assist with any requirements they might have.

• All of our venues are wheelchair accessible. Speak to us if you require wheelchair parking and we will advise on which venues are most suitable.
• All of our venues can be accessed either from street level or via a ramp from street level.
• All of our venues have wheelchair accessible lifts.
• All of our venues are fitted with visibility panels.
• Fixed and mobile induction loops are available on request.
• All of our venues have wheelchair accessible toilets.
• All of our venues are assistance dog friendly.

If you have any concerns or queries, then please feel free to get in touch. We are committed to inclusion and will work with you to ensure that your specific needs are met. We are constantly working on ways to improve our accessibility further, so please let us know if there’s anything else you think we could be doing.

Charity Work and Community Involvement

The nature of our business involves capital projects where we need to acquire new furniture. However, we do not just throw away our old furniture. We will donate furniture to charities, for example we donated all of our restaurant furniture from our Barbican venue to a homeless charity so that it could be used in their restaurant.

Another example was that our conference chairs needed improving for comfort. Rather than throw them all out, we retained the frames and had them re-padded and upholstered. All of the padding and upholstery was not thrown into landfill, instead it was used to wrap around sapling trees for winter protection and the prevention of pests.

CCT Venues has worked closely with charities and for several years have supported our local community in Tower Hamlets by working with the ‘First Love Foundation’. As well as making financial and hamper donations, we  have hosted several complimentary events for their volunteers and the community they support, including, meetings, presentation ceremonies and Christmas lunches for 100 families from the area so they could experience Christmas and not miss out on celebrating. This particular event was a highlight in our year and was supported at Director Level and all staff members got involved to make sure the event was a success.

Other community support included hosting the second phase of the Football 4 Freedom programme, organised by Reading Football Club in partnership with the charity Justice & Care UK. We provided them complimentary venue space to support this important awareness and education programme.

In 2020 we signed up to the ‘Small Action Big Impact’ campaign, a 12-month behavioural change campaign. This started well, for example, we introduced sweet dispensers into our venue rather than offering wrapped sweets, as we recently discovered that despite the fact that the wrappers are paper, they use a plastic wax sealing, rendering them non-recyclable. We are also continuing to reduce the amount of paper provided in the rooms (with the option to request more if required), through the introduction of ‘Doodle Walls’, with the aim of reducing the need for flipchart paper. We are currently trialling this and we will roll it out to all venues if it works well for clients.

In 2021, we will once again provide fully funded events for First Love Foundation for their Love Summer initiative which provided a much needed lunch club for kids who usually get free school meals and often miss out during school holidays.

With monthly meetings focusing on CSR, and management involvement with IACC Green initiatives, there is bound to be more to come.

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted some work such as the Small Action Big Impact project, but CCT Venues remain committed to CSR and improving the way we operate on an on-going basis and we look forward to a positive future.