Background

Employing 262 people locally, JP Corry is in its third century of trading in Northern Ireland, offering a range of heavy building construction materials and timber, hardware, landscaping products, insulation and bespoke joinery solutions. JP Corry is part of Saint-Gobain UK & Ireland’s Building Distribution network.

JP Corry is dedicated to playing a large a part in Saint-Gobain’s overall CSR strategy and focuses on three main pillars of supporting and developing its people; caring for the environment it operates in; and connecting with its communities and supporting their economic development.

What JP Corry did

JP Corry has undertaken a local level outreach programme to engage with its suppliers to promote better business practices. Working with its top 20 suppliers initially, it has explored options to reduce packaging and waste at source. It has also examined streamlining delivery services and the number of trips to ensure its carbon footprint is as small as possible.

A pilot scheme is running with one key supplier (Keystone Group) based on staff health and wellbeing. It is investigating a range of lifestyle and fitness-based competitions between both parties, with the aim of promoting a better attitude towards health in the workplace. It is hoped that both businesses will benefit from sharing best practices.

A CSR road map has been created projecting its CSR intentions by 2025, allowing the company to clearly track its CSR progress. Completing CORE – the Standard for Responsible Business – and participating in the NI Environmental Benchmarking Survey have helped the company see steady growth in CSR activities, and increased staff buy-in to initiatives including our volunteering scheme.

‘Bug Hotels’ are being installed at all branches, with an education roll out idea to build these along with local primary school children and help raise the issue of bio-diversity amongst the next generation. The schools are then offered materials to construct their own on school grounds.

Work with it charity partner, Barnardos, goes beyond fundraising, as JP Corry has enjoyed the company of some of the care leavers at a recent staff family day, and extended the offer of mentoring from senior management to help with interview skills.

Discontinued lines or damaged products are being reused by organisations with a social purpose such as Habitat NI, helping those with lesser means to carry out repairs or maintenance to their homes.

Impacts and Outcomes

• High level of staff engagement in CSR activities
• Low staff turnover.
• 81% of staff felt it was important for the company to be involved in worthy causes
• 77% of staff agreed that the business was responsible
• More than £68,500 raised by employees for charity partners since 2014
• 33 days paid volunteering to worthy causes in the schemes first year (2017)
• More than £2,000+ worth of goods donated to social enterprises/organisations that provide a societal benefit
• Three defibrillators installed at branches, two of which are constantly available to the public for use in rural/high traffic areas
• Reduced carbon footprint as a result of fleet improvements and a constantly improving attitude to energy and fuel consumption
• Going digital has saved the equivalent of 24 trees in the last year
• Reduced waste to landfill by using vetted contractors to handle waste and improved attitudes at branch level regarding sorting waste

For more information, please email francis.goodall@jpcorry.co.uk