Corporate Social Responsibility
Citywide has a proud history of providing services and support to the communities in which we operate and where our employees live, work and play. Through our Corporate Social Responsibility Program, we are committed to providing shared value for our host communities, our customers and our business. Our approach to corporate & social responsibility is framed by four key issues of concern to our customers and their community constituents:
– Education, Training and Jobs
– Environment & Sustainability
– Homelessness, Social Justice and Well-being
– Youth Opportunities
We are proud to support and partner with community organisations that are addressing such critical social issues. As a services company, we pride ourselves on maintaining and enhancing community assets and being actively involved in local communities; engaging with them to make positive social changes.
Partnerships
Through our Community Engagement Framework, we partner with selected social enterprises, charities and not-for-profits who share our corporate values and who are strategically placed to help solve the key issues of concern to our customers. Click through to view our current partner social procurement and community organisations (opens in new window).
Employee Volunteering
At Citywide, our staff proactively contribute over and above the day job to the wellbeing of their local communities and other social concerns further afield. This support varies from community to community and is demonstrated in a variety of ways, including the provision of paid leave for staff to volunteer with a community concern.
Financial Support & Matched Funding
Citywide proudly supports selected not-for-profits, charities and social enterprises with in-kind pro bono services, products and support. We also provide financial support to several partners to support them in meeting their strategic objectives, including matching funding from individual staff fundraising efforts.
Diversity & Inclusion
Having a social licence to operate is integral to our shared value approach with the community and all our stakeholders, with the common goal of fostering greater social cohesion. This supports our commitment to promoting diversity, equality and inclusion across our company without discrimination and we actively seek to create employment opportunities for the economically disadvantaged, disabled, CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) communities and indigenous interests.
This policy covers all operational and administrative offices and sites of Citywide and subsidiaries such as Technigro. It also takes into account the company’s capabilities and capacity to resource (staff, financial; operational; equipment, etc.).
Responsible Sourcing
Citywide and its subsidiaries including Technigro are committed to responsible sourcing practices.
We regularly review our operations and supply chains with the aim of ensuring that we, our suppliers and third-party business partners operate without infringing human rights. We do not tolerate any form of modern slavery practices including child or forced labour. Access our Modern Slavery Statement here (click to download).
To help us achieve our aim, if you become aware of any related concerns, we encourage you to let us know by contacting us through this website (click through to Contact page).
Sustainability
Our goal is to minimise our environmental footprint and to inspire and equip our people with ‘world’s best’ sustainability standards to effectively manage the environmental aspects of our operations, whilst ensuring continuous improvement and zero harm to the environment and communities in which we work.
We use a market leading environmental data management platform to manage and monitor energy usage and costs across all of our operations. The data allows us to monitor our carbon generation and provides us with information to evaluate initiatives developed and implemented to reduce our carbon footprint.
We are also a foundation partner in the Melbourne Renewable Energy Project (MREP). Through this program - led by our parent the City of Melbourne Council - we will purchase renewable energy through a wind farm being constructed for the MREP in regional Victoria.
New glass recycling plant fuels circular economy
Citywide has unveiled a world-class glass recycling plant capable of cleaning glass from co-mingled bins and highly contaminated material that can’t be processed by other plants – significantly increasing our contribution to Victoria’s circular economy.
In addition to diverting waste from landfill, the plant will produce up to 400 tonnes of high-value sand replacement products each week, which can be used for everything from cement production and sandblasting to asphalt for roads and pavements. It will also naturally reduce the construction industry’s voracious appetite for virgin sand.
The new glass plant builds on a trial that has been operating at Citywide’s Resource Recovery and Waste Transfer Station in West Melbourne since the start of this year, thanks to a development grant from the Victorian Government’s Recycling Victoria Infrastructure Fund. The new plant is due to start operating at full capacity in March 2022.
Citywide Operations Executive Duncan Reid said the glass plant will become one of many circular economy projects at our West Melbourne site, which is evolving as an innovation hub for emerging technologies that utilise waste as a valuable resource.
“Along with our e-waste, cardboard, street-sweeping and other recycling operations, plus the energy-from-waste project due to come online in early 2025, the new glass plant will form a substantial part of the Innovation Hub we are developing at West Melbourne,” Mr Reid said.
Read: Energy from Waste MoU to fuel growing circular economy
“Our investment in the circular economy is consistent with our Waste and Recycling Strategy and is about doing everything we can to not only stop wasting valuable existing products but also protecting precious natural resources.”
Citywide’s Sustainability Manager, Claire Bright, said the new plant would be able to recycle “challenging" glass loads that could not be treated by other plants due to their small particle size or contamination with plastics or paper.
“A lot of plants can only process glass particles over a certain size, so they wind up with a lot of material that’s too small to go through their machines,” Ms Bright said.
“Our plant will be able to support these operators in processing their difficult-to-process glass, as well as acting as a demonstration site for multiple other recycling and repurposing solutions.”
The new plant will also play a significant role when Victoria’s container deposit scheme commences in 2023.
“We are in the midst of a generational change right now in how we deal with waste and recycling products,” added Mr Reid.
“We have quite literally reached a tipping point where we are rightly assessing the recyclable value of existing products.
“The circular economy is all about examining every waste product we can possibly divert from landfill and repurposing it in a sustainable way.”
#VictorianGovernment #SustainabilityVictoria #NationalRecyclingWeek #CircularEconomy #sustainability #innovation
Media Contact:
Simon Mossman - Group Corporate Communications
M 0427 307 216
E simon.mossman@citywide.com.au
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