Sustainability is embedded into Henry Brother’s core strategic decision-making process and is represented at all stages of the project lifecycle. This holistic approach encapsulates all sectors of the business, engages employees, and empowers site teams to deliver high quality and sustainable design and build projects using innovative solutions, focusing on the end user requirements.

Bringing Biodiversity to you

Henry Brothers continually goes beyond statutory requirements to preserve and enhance the local environment in line with its biodiversity commitments to the Business and Biodiversity Charter, of which it holds Platinum status. Biodiversity is one of the company’s Key Performance Indicators and as such it reports on this, striving to enhance biodiversity year on year.

A key element of Henry Brothers Biodiversity Strategy is the interaction with local schools through the Henry Brother’s Nature Park Education Programme, which is delivered in partnership with Ulster Wildlife. Prior to the Covid-19 restrictions, this programme provided environmental learning opportunities outside of the classroom where pupils could explore nature and learn about biodiversity. Henry Brothers has engaged 5000+ students through environmental initiatives over the last six years through nature visits, school talks and environmental lectures to university students.

This form of engagement is extremely important to the company and therefore adaptation was crucial during the Covid-19 pandemic, to ensure local schools were still benefiting from all the Nature Park has to offer. An interactive video was developed by the Environmental Team for pupils in Primary 1,2 and 3. This was an effective way to bring the Nature Park to the classroom, allowing the students to continue to learn about biodiversity and engage them in conversations about animal life cycles, food chains and flora and fauna found within woodland habitats.

With restrictions limiting in-person contact over the last year, a variety of the company’s social media platforms were used to promote environmental awareness days. This was used as an opportunity to virtually engage with staff and local communities to highlight the work that is being done to enhance biodiversity. Images of school visits and the Nature Park were published on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as part of World Wildlife Day on 3^rd March 2021, as a way to emphasise the significance of woodlands and encourage everyone to help conserve forest wildlife.

The company celebrated Go Green Week through an infographic which was uploaded to social media and circulated internally. This discussed a different aspect of sustainability each day of the week, such as ‘Marine Monday’ and ‘Talking Trash Tuesday’ informing staff and the wider public of how they can help to make a positive, lasting change.

Henry Brother’s believes that investing in nature is vital for biodiversity, beneficial for the economy and critical for society. Over the last year, it has adapted to the challenges brought on by Covid-19, which has allowed the company to continue to engage with the local community. Henry Brother’s is looking forward to welcoming back students to the Nature Park soon and continuing to build on company-wide biodiversity preservation and enhancement initiatives.