Axis Responsible Business Report 2021/22

Message from our Chairman

Axis is a family-run business. And we like to keep things simple. So, simply put, we adopt best practice in everything we do. We want to run our business the right and best way, including being a Responsible Business.

What is a Responsible Business?

Axis’ core work is making homes and properties safe and comfortable for residents and occupants.

In all areas of our business we take positive action to address our economic, social and environmental impacts.

And, as a Responsible Business we focus on current behaviours and also develop a strategy for the future.

What makes Axis a Responsible Business?

I believe there are three pillars that support a successful Responsible Business:

• our People

• our Environment

• our Community

You will find out more in the following pages.

Our company culture at Axis – underpinned by our eight Core Values – ensures that every individual feels included and responsible too.

Running a Responsible Business might seem hard to reconcile with running a commercially successful business: but at Axis we can – and do – achieve both. Because we are on a path, we don’t stand still: and we know there are many things we can do better.

So we set ourselves targets and keep working at them, with our clients too.

I am proud of what we have achieved and are indeed achieving. And I look forward with enthusiasm, as we develop our strategies and targets for the future.

Thank you for taking a look at our Responsible Business Report.

Hayes

Founder and CEO: Axis Europe

John

Chairman,

“Running a Responsible Business might seem hard to reconcile with running a commercially successful business: but at Axis I believe we achieve both. Because we are on a path, we don’t stand still: and we know there are many things we can do better. So we set ourselves targets and keep working at them”.

Our Values

From its very beginning over 35 years ago, Axis has been a values-led company with eight founding principles created by John Hayes. Integrity, honesty

Everybody deserves respect

Train and develop people – their growth becomes our growth

Embracing diversity will broaden our horizons

John Hayes, Axis CEO

“Our Core Values are based around the way we should behave as a company. They are called Corporate Values. But they are really my personal values. This is how I want my values-led business to be run”

About Axis

Axis provides some of the UK’s largest building owners, landlords and facilities managers with building repairs, maintenance and improvements services.

375,000 Home repairs completed 2021/22

Axis works in social housing, commercial, heritage and public sectors. We make buildings safe and comfortable for their owners (our clients) and their occupants and residents.

Services we offer include Retrofit and Recladding, Responsive and Planned Repairs and Maintenance, Roofing, Commercial Fit Out, Mechanical and Electrical (including EV chargepoint installation) Painting and Decorating and Roofing.

Our commitment to the communities where we work is of paramount importance to us too. We like to say we provide people with even more than bricks and mortar through our donations, volunteering, community initiatives and practical support.

We always remember that our site is someone’s home.

Our History

In our 35+-year history, Axis has become a highly successful and reputable business employing nearly 1,000 people and with offices and sites across the UK.

At our core we remain a values-led, family run firm with a strong company culture that all Axis people identify with. We are proud to say we may not be the biggest, but we aim to be the best at what we do.

In our industry we are known as a safe pair of hands.

Our Three Pillars support a successful Responsible Business

As a Responsible Business, and as individuals working at Axis, we focus on our current behaviours – including areas where we can improve – and also set ourselves targets and goals as our strategy for the future.

We identify three pillars that support a successful Responsible Business: our People, our Community and our Environment.

Our People

Axis is committed to supporting the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

• Equality, Diversion and Inclusion

• Inclusive Recruitment

• Learning Development and Training

• Wellbeing and Engagement

---

• Health and Safety

“We are Many Faces, One Axis. Here every individual can thrive. Our business reflects our customer base, the very diverse communities in which we work”

Maria Northwood, Business Support Director

“We work at the heart of community – in people’s homes – so we are well placed to drive positive change, to enhance the lives of local people and leave a positive, lasting legacy here”

Kellie Turner, Community Investment Manager

“The continual improvement of our environmental performance lies at the very heart of all that we do”

Oliver Refson, Quality and Sustainability Manager

Our People

Equality, Diversion and Inclusion

Our mantra, Many Faces, One Axis, as well as our Core Value 4 Embracing diversity will broaden our horizons both enforce and evidence our commitment to creating and maintaining an inclusive workforce.

male&female Female

67% 33%

Our engagement with local schools and colleges will achieve a balanced percentage of male/female employees for the future. All employees complete a LMS training course on ED&I as part of their induction.

71% White

14% Black/African/ Caribbean/Black British

Our Core Values underpin our daily lives at Axis. We prioritise Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in our Recruitment Drive and through our investment in Landed recruitment software. Learning, Development and Training are priorities – we are proud to ‘grow our own’ – as are the Wellbeing and Engagement and Health and Safety of our people. Male

9% Asian/Asian British

6% Mixed/multiple ethnic groups

Future Focus: To further close our Gender Pay Gap and to increase the percentage of female employees; to reflect more closely in the diversity of our staff the communities where we work.

“National Inclusion Week really represents what is going on throughout the company all year round. It is a window for us to highlight our Core Value 4 which we honour every day”

Axis’ Business Support Director

Maria Northwood,

Axis employ e journey to success

Leading and inspiring

Living our organisation’s values and behaviours

Inclusive Recruitment

Empowering and involving

Managing performance

Our drive to inclusive recruitment reflects the communities where we work. From the moment of arrival and onboarding, our digital and face-to face-induction ensures new staff share our values and our beliefs.

Recognising and rewarding high performance

Structuring work

Building capability

Delivering continuous improvement

Creating sustainable success Axis is Disability Confident Committed

56% Promotions male

16.17%

Our investment in Landed recruitment software which combines digital marketing, applicant tracking and screening tech evidences transparency and engagement, allowing us to track candidates through the system to onboarding and beyond and improving our candidate recruitment experience.

79

Female managers (3 Directors)

44%

Mean Gender Pay Gap Promotions female

See our 2021 Gender Pay Gap Report published 2022)

Future Focus:

To continue to have fully transparent recruitment campaigns; to improve our reach and develop more inclusive language and better training for recruiting managers in 2023.

Learning, Development and Training

Our Core Value 3 Train and develop people – their growth becomes our growth lies at the heart of our training programme.

As Gold Investors in People, we are proud to ‘grow our own’ including through our Apprenticeship programme.

In 2021 our 12-month Leadership and Management training embedded leadership skills across the business, impacting over 240 first line managers. Our Passport 2 Work programme delivers 6 days training for all operatives including from external professional bodies such as UKATA, CISRS and CITB.

And our own fully integrated LMS system offers a wide range of mandatory and discretionary courses accessible to all our employees.

Future Focus:

To create a bespoke training plan and possible career pathways for all job roles with training provided by our LMS system by 2023; to create 25+ coaching partnerships by 2023; to continue to adapt and embed Leadership and Management training throughout the organisation.

to w ork passport

535 Leadership and Management Courses attended

20

Qualified Quantity Surveyors

In partnership with Chartered Surveyors Training Trust (2013-2018)

10% 2030

6

of our workforce are Apprentices and Trainees

Hours of Leadership and Management training provided

4018

Days PTW training for all operatives PTW courses completed

1095

PTW hours learning and developing skills

Wellbeing and Engagement

Axis ensures the wellbeing of our employees including through Occupational Health and a dedicated Employee Assistance programme offering face to face counselling sessions.

We also offer a range of discounted benefits through PerkBox where employees can access GPs, discounted fitness programmes and personal development courses.

95% Activation rate on Perkbox

33% of employees have been with us for over 5 years

40 Mental Health First Aiders

This year, we trained 15 Mental Health champions to support our employees.

All our employees have their birthday off. And we are proud of our Long Service Clubs – members receive rewards and bonuses for their dedication: some of our people have been with us for 25+ years!

15

Years of 10 year+ parties

13%

of employees have been with us over 10 years

Health and Safety

Our Core Value 8 is Commitment to health and safety benefits everyone.

To ensure everyone – Axis people, the public and everyone we engage with – goes home safe at night we invest heavily in Health & Safety and have a dedicated Health & Safety Director and team.

We run mandatory digital and faceto-face External and Internal Training, Campaigns and Toolbox Talks and our Directors audit our H&S through frequent and regular site visits.

Future Focus: To develop an employee-led programme of inclusivity setting goals and standards around all protected characteristics – Free to Be Me. To continue to train and attract Mental Health Champions and place employees’ mental health at the centre of our lives; to continue to develop our strong partnership with our occupational health provider.

Our Red and Yellow card system deals with any failures on site while our robust PQQ ensures all our supply chain is fully compliant.

135 Total incidents

Future Focus: To continue to ensure our Core Value endorses our safety behaviours on site and in our offices Accreditations Gained: CHAS Constructionline ISO 45001 Safe Contractor

1660 Inspections completed

146 30% Days - longest period without a RIDDOR Accident frequency rates down in 4 years

Our Community

In addition to our work improving homes and buildings for residents and our clients, Axis supports our local communities through Volunteering; Fundraising; our charity the Axis Foundation; our Work Inspiration programme and Community Funds

Volunteering

We give all Axis employees one working day (7 hours) each Financial Year to volunteer for an organisation of their choice.

Categories include Education & Training, Environmental, Events Volunteering, and Vulnerable Groups.

Charities Axis people have supported through Volunteering this year include:

• The Literacy Pirates – literacy programme for children

• Arts for All – arts for disadvantaged people

• Re-Engage – caring callers for vulnerable residents

• Royal British Legion – Poppy Appeal

• Ambition Aspire Achieve –Newham Christmas Toy Appeal

More about these volunteering stories here

Future Focus: To increase volunteering by 10% utilising partnership with BITC to address skills-based

10%

800 of employees used their volunteering day Causes supported Hours of volunteering

48

Our corporate charity partner is Demelza Hospice Care for Children.

Through corporate donations, our annual golf day and charity ball, as well as fundraising challenges by Axis people we have donated over £850,000 to Demelza over the last 18 years.

£85,000

Employee Fundraising Challenges this year include:

• Skydive

• London Marathon

• Three Peaks Challenge

• Orbit Abseil

• Mount Snowdon Climb

Future Focus: To introduce a series of social fundraising events to increase employee engagement in a hybrid working environment.

5

Fundraising Axis Foundation

Future Focus: To encourage more Axis employees to submit applications for causes that are important to them.

Raised for Demelza

26

More about these fundraising stories here

The Axis Foundation donates to small, local, and impactful causes in the communities where Axis operates.

We have donated £2m to over 270 causes in 13 years of giving.

£170,000 donated to small, local and impactful causes (includes donation to Demelza)

Donations made through the Axis Foundation this year include:

• £3,000 to Perkisound

Fundraising challenges Causes supported

• £3,790 to Youth Adventure Trust

• £6,000 to Swale Gloves

More about our donations here

Future Focus: To increase the number of young females in the construction industry by targeting girls’ schools local to where we work.

Work Inspiration

Our Work Inspiration programme provides practical and inspiring insight into the world of work through work experience placements, career talks, mentoring, CV skills and mock interview workshops and apprenticeships.

Axis’ annual apprentice recruitment programme ensures 10% of our workforce are apprentices (painting, plastering, carpentry, multi-trade, plumbing, electrical, quantity surveying and administration).

10%

of our workforce are apprentices and trainees

During the Pandemic we partnered with Education Development Trust and Construction Youth Trust adapting our work inspiration programme to virtual initiatives.

23

Projects our Work Inspiration programme delivered this year include:

• Employability Workshops to 244 Year 7 students at Shenfield High School

• Electrical installation competition for Electrical students at Croydon College

• Virtual ‘Construction Hot Topics’ event with Peabody

There’s more about these stories here

53

802 Weeks of work placements delivered

Students engaged with Work Inspiration programme

New apprentices joined Axis

16

Careers events/job fairs attended

Community Funds

In partnership with Travis Perkins and City Plumbing we support projects which leave a lasting social legacy and align to at least one of these 4 community goals:

• Support employment and economic opportunities

• Promote involvement and resident engagement

• Promote environmental sustainability

• Promote social progress and equality

Projects we have supported through the Community Funds this year include:

• PA Housing Hedgehog Street Garden – Axis volunteers transformed a community garden in Walton-on-Thames

• Optivo Build Yourself Kent –we donated £2,925 to help fund Optivo’s employment programme for 45 young people

• Westminster QPG Breakfast & After-School Club – we donated £4,150 to help fund kitchen items and sporting equipment

£32,000 donated to clients’ causes

Future Focus:

To continue to work in partnership with our clients to identify suitable projects to support in local communities.

£62,000

more about our community funds projects here

32

donated to causes through Travis Perkins and City Plumbing Causes supported

12

Clients’ causes supported

Our Environment

Working with our supply chain, we are changing our own behaviours to achieve our goals specifically in Biodiversity, Waste Reduction, Carbon Reduction, Awareness and Procurement. We are also helping our clients achieve their own zero carbon goals, delivering energy efficient Retrofit works under PAS 2035.

Biodiversity

We have partnered with Ecologi, planting a tree for every employee, supporting the British environment and providing habitat and climate resilience.

We also plant a tree for every employee who completes their first year of service. As the Axis family

grows, so will our forest. We began our first offsetting projects in the Amazon which has offset 15 tCO2 .

Our committed Axis people volunteered over 198 hours to help the environment: from regenerating green spaces to caring for bees.

Future Focus: To improve reporting on and managing biodiversity net gain; to plant 5000 native trees by 2030

956 15 198 Native trees planted in the Scottish Highlands

Waste Reduction

This year we partnered with Waste Broker Enva to provide more transparency on all waste created, help us remove items from our waste streams and identify more circular economies.

• We are zero to landfill in office waste – offsetting 20.73 tonnes of CO2

• Every paint can is returned to the provider for recycling.

• Residents’ Skip Days reduce cost of disposing waste and prevent fly-tipping

95% Site waste diverted from landfill

62,000 Total number of paint cans recycled

Future Focus: To increase site diversion from landfill rate to 97% reaching 100% by 2030

100% Office waste diverted from landfill

Carbon Reduction

We have partnered with carbon accounting company Emitwise to measure and map out our carbon footprint and create our baseline for the year 2019/20.

Breaking down our emissions clearly enables us to analyse hotspots, and to introduce targets and initiatives which will have the most tangible beneficial impact on the environment.

Fuel 48%

Future Focus:

To halve our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030

3% 6% Electricity Supplier Services

23% 11% 9%

Purchased Goods

Miscellanious

Employee Travel

Axis is committed to being Carbon Neutral by 2030 and Net Zero by 2050. For the year 2021 we mapped out our entire Carbon Baseline for the year 2019: we produced 5,532 tonnes of CO2e which is equivalent of the annual emissions of 1,888

households. As a priority our business must rapidly reduce carbon emissions from across our whole value chain to limit a global temperature increase by 1.5°C to avoid irreparable environmental destruction.

2576 100% 4516

Renewable electricity supplies Axis

Tonnes CO2e Scope 1 and 2 emissions

Tonnes of CO2e Our emissions = 10.5 million miles of driving

Awareness

Sustainability is a mandatory online learning course and our dedicated Sustainability Champions drive improvement and best practice in all our works.

Future Focus: To develop a more carbon literate workforce through in-house training

9 Years ISO 14001 certified business

Sustainability LMS courses completed

11

131 ChampionsSustainabilityappointed

Our successful recycling programme won us First Mile’s Silver Certificate. First Mile helps businesses with zero-to-landfill waste collection

Procurement

It is crucial our supply chain shares our goals and values if we are to meet our own targets: our multi-stage Pre Qualifying Questionnaire ensures that only compliant and ethical suppliers work for Axis.

98% of these

Identifying small changes that greatly limit our environmental impact, we are purchasing ecofriendly and sustainable products: all our pens are 100% biodegradable made from sugar cane and all our paintbrushes are 100% carbon neutral and eco-friendly.

576 100% 35%

of invoices paid within 60 days Compliant and ethical members added to our supply chain Biodegradable pens purchased of invoices paid within 30 days

Future Focus: To introduce new sustainable products into our procurement practices; to identify most carbon intensive products and eliminate them from our supply chain; to ensure all marketing materials are carbon neutral.

Axis’ Road to Net Zero 2019

Axis installs our first EV Chargers

100% renewable electricity achieved Axis plants 956 trees - 15 tonnes of CO2 offset

50% reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions

Axis goes Carbon Neutral

50% of our fleet will be electric

Elimination of Fluorinated greenhouse gases in head offices

Axis installs hydrogen ready boilers

100% of our fleet will be electric

100% office waste diverted from landfill

95% site waste diverted from landfill

20% of our fleet will be electric

2027

Axis offices supplied by green gas

Axis achieves Net Zero