Thriving communities

We’re committed to understanding what it takes for communities to thrive and then work to maximise our contribution nationally and locally.

We’re working towards ensuring that our activities in support of national needs – contributing to nature recovery, energy security and the transition to net zero carbon while delivering financial value – will also deliver social impact at a local level.

Our work is guided by a set of social impact principles, which include addressing national needs, focusing on place, listening to and involving communities – including young people and our accessibility ambassadors - and collaborating for collective action.

Guided by this framework, we continue to identify places where we can create benefits that are greater than the sum of their parts, which offer positive experiences for all.

This means developing supply chains, infrastructure and housing in coastal areas to support our leadership in offshore wind, as well as creating jobs and building skills to support the decarbonisation of heritage buildings. It means working with farmers to safeguard food production and the long-term future of their businesses while protecting nature. And it means focusing on mixed-use developments with the right blend of uses in regional locations, to support regeneration and help communities to thrive.

Jobs and opportunity

We’ve created a £10 million Supply Chain Accelerator to help communities around offshore wind developments to benefit from the supply chain opportunities, as well as future jobs and skills opportunities.

For the first time in our offshore wind leasing (Offshore Wind Leasing Round 5), we have established requirements for applicants to incorporate a social value model. To be successful they will need to demonstrate how they will work with local communities, provide employment and skills, tackle inequality and provide environment benefits.

We’re also exploring the skills gap – and potential employment opportunities – for retrofitting heritage buildings with our partners Grosvenor, Peabody, Historic England and the National Trust.

And we’re inspiring the next generation to consider careers in sustainability through our partnership with Microsoft to develop offshore wind and nature conservation Minecraft games.

Collaborating for impact

One of our key strengths is that we can bring people together to make a positive impact, so we’re building partnerships that support long-term systemic change.

Our Regional strategy focuses on places where we can support urban regeneration, housing and the innovation economy. This includes partnerships to deliver high quality, mixed-use developments in Cambridge and Oxford, to provide much needed space for life sciences and innovation as well as housing; meeting urgent demand in these areas and helping to support the UK on the global tech start-up stage.

In Hemel Hempstead, we are exploring how we can use our extensive portfolio of land to innovate in housing; working with the Hemel Garden Communities group, a development programme that brings several local councils, enterprise partners and landowners together to create attractive and sustainable new neighbourhoods, homes and jobs in the area.

We also continue to build on our longstanding relationship with the Department for Work and Pensions in providing employment opportunities through Recruit Regional – which connects our customers with local people who are out of work - exploring how it can be expanded to green skills.

In London, we’re creating districts that are welcoming and accessible, environmentally and socially sustainable, and connected. To achieve this we’re testing new collaborations, like our partnership with Arts ARKADE which has seen a prime Central London retail space transformed into a hub for urban arts which is supporting young people to develop vital skills for the future. We’ve also created The Crown Estate Youth Panel - made up of 13 young people aged 16-20 who live or study in London – to hear their ideas on our wider strategic direction for London, district developments and public realm.

Accessibility and inclusivity

Treating everyone with care and respect is core to our values, and we aim to create places that offer positive experiences for all.

Through our partnership with AccessAble we’ve made accessibility user guides available for our regional retail assets and used insights from their accessibility audits to build accessibility into our designs. This can be challenging in relation to the refurbishment of heritage buildings, but we want to go beyond compliance to ensure our properties are truly accessible to all.

We’re partnering with Grosvenor, in consultation with several local landlords and a panel of people with a diverse range of lived experiences, to look at some of the systemic challenges to accessibility and inclusivity and find solutions.

We’re also committed to supporting mental health, whether through providing access to nature (from the Windsor Estate to street planting in London) or by training Mental Health First Aiders within our own teams and raising awareness through events and content.

Extending impact throughout our supply chain

We’re committed to amplifying our impact through working with our supply chain and collaborating with suppliers who share our vision and values. This includes our Supplier Charter, which outlines specific requirements for suppliers to demonstrate their commitment to our priorities in five key areas: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Sustainability; Ethical & Inclusive Practices; Privacy & Information Security; and Innovative Business Practices.

We are part of the Social Enterprise UK's Buy Social Corporate Challenge, a group of high-profile businesses is aiming to collectively spend £1 billion with social enterprises through their procurement. This includes our commitment to source more of our core facilities products from social enterprises. We're also using our convening power to bring together our supply chain and charity partners to support refugee, care leaver and disability groups in Westminster. We’re continuing to explore wider opportunities to access and support the social economy.