Our social value commitments

Supporting local people into sustainable employment

At Lifeways, we are committed to promoting employment and economic sustainability, and do so nationally. We frequently recruit from outside of the care sector, boosting local employment and ensuring we bring fresh ideas into the company for effective service delivery.

We place a great focus on retention, offering clear development pathways and many attractive employee benefits to ensure we retain and reward the talented individuals working throughout Lifeways. 

We offer a range of career opportunities for those who wish to progress and support our people to register and access both external and internal learning courses. We also promote achievements, qualifications, and career progression through Workplace, our internal communication platform, to highlight successes and achievements.

Our commitment to equality allows us to fully support any of our people that live with a disability – people such as David, who has schizophrenia, who joined us after being made redundant and has since thrived, and been promoted to a senior support worker.

Supporting local businesses and community engagement

Wherever possible, we integrate our services and the people we support with the community by engaging with local businesses and taking part in local events. We do this by working with the people we support to find local offerings that are important to them and that they are interested in.

We prioritise sourcing from local suppliers and sub-contractors where feasible. We proactively purchase products from meaningful suppliers who are also committed to joining us on our sustainability journey. This extends to our building and maintenance suppliers who undertake a significant proportion of work annually.

Our engagement efforts go even further, as we explore volunteering and paid employment opportunities by working closely with local employers to offer meaningful work opportunities for the people we support. 

Through each of these initiatives, not only do we support local businesses and the community by using local services, but also through proactively supporting and advising them to be more inclusive.

Additionally, we involve our people and local communities in our climate and energy programme, aiming to foster climate-positive connections. We proactively inform stakeholders about our carbon-reduction efforts and the impact of waste and resource use. Innovations like 'Lifeways in Bloom' involve planting trees to introduce green spaces in local communities.

Environmental sustainability 

As a national company, we are acutely aware of the impact that our business could have on the environment and work to proactively to reduce our environmental impact wherever possible.

Utilising all relevant environmental legislation as a foundation for identifying ways of saving energy and reducing carbon emissions, best practice is increasingly embedded in our organisation and we benchmark our performance against other leading care home groups and international best practice wherever possible.

In 2021, we conducted an independent Environmental, Social and Governance compliance review, including energy use, and are committed to its findings. Our focus is on converting existing services to be low-carbon,  securing lower energy costs, and collaborating with housing provider stakeholders towards this goal.

We actively encourage and promote waste reduction and energy saving for those we support and within the workplace. For example, by turning off lights when not in a room, reducing the thermostat by 1°C or washing laundry at 30°C when able. This not only promotes environmental sustainability but saves money too. 

All employees are now actively encouraged to minimise travel and we promote the use of virtual meetings whenever possible reducing travel.

We are careful to partner with reputable companies that are committed to reducing carbon footprints, and where relevant are ISO14001 accredited and have clear sustainability targets in place.

Read our Environmental, Social and Governance Statement

Read about our commitment to a sustainable future