Mobile Menu Icon
0151 702 5555
What’s happening at PSS? » News »

Sustainability September at PSS!

Judges from Northwest in Bloom, people we support from Making Days and some of our staff are all stood in the gardens of our PSS head office. They are smiling at the camera. The judges had just judged our green spaces for the Northwest in Bloom competition.

September 1, 2023

Sustainability September at PSS!

Sustainability at PSS 

At PSS, we care a lot about people, our planet and making sure we’re able to support people now and in the future. That’s why it’s been so important to us that we make sure sustainability is something that we’re doing at every level. From creating the PSS Planet Pledge, to the PSS Green Guide, to making lots of energy saving changes to our workspaces and educating and empowering our staff, people we support and volunteers to be more environmentally friendly and kinder to our planet.  

What’s the PSS Planet Pledge?  

The PSS Planet Pledge is a pledge we’re making as an organisation and as individuals. We’ve broken it down into five categories. 

Here’s what we’re aiming to do by 2024: 

  • Reduce our carbon footprint 
  • Help our green spaces grow 
  • Use our resources wisely 
  • Choose greener transport
  • Keep on learning 

We’ll also be asking all of our staff to make individual pledges at the start of the year and then we’ll reflect on them each month in their monthly one-to-ones. They might pledge to use public transport at least once a month or shop more from sustainable ethical brands – the choice is theirs and it can be as little or as big as they’d like. 

You can read our PSS Planet Pledge by clicking this link.

What are we doing to save the planet? 

Rome wasn’t built in a day, which is sort of similar when it comes to climate change. Although drastic change is desperately needed now, we understand that it’s the small changes we can all make daily, that will amount to big change over time.  

Here’s some of the things we’ve been doing at PSS:  

  • PSS Swap Shop – a place for people to donate and swap their preloved items, from books to bags and everything else in between.  
  • Growing our green spaces – we’ve got our very own PSS gardening group with the people we support, staff members and volunteers who have been busy making the spaces around our buildings more environmentally friendly. They’ve busy growing plants and protecting and attracting local wildlife.  
  • Growing vegetables on our windowsills in our offices. 
  • Removed all lamps and swapped all the bulbs in our working spaces for LED bulbs with dimmer switches – watt a way to save energy! 
  • Created a green living guide full of helpful tips to help our staff, people we support and volunteers to live more green – read our PSS Green Guide to Sustainability by clicking this link.
  • Almost a fully paperless organisation – including the use of paper cups. 
  • Our volunteers at Dutch Farm are the bee’s knees when it comes to beekeeping. They’ve also created their own pond and have been planting lots of wildflowers.  Take a look at Dutch Farm by clicking this link.
  • Our Making Days team love working on the allotments at Dutch Farm and making delicious food with their produce.
  • We’ve also got some gardening gurus who volunteer at Newby House, our supported living accommodation. 
  • Beach cleaning with our staff, volunteers and people we support.
  • Hybrid working means our teams don’t have to commute into the office every day. 
  • Vegan and vegetarian catering for all of our events.  
  • Buying from local and ethically sourced business’ like our coffee for example!
  • Nominated sustainability champions in each of our workspaces. 
  • Dedicated Teams channel called the ‘sustainability warriors’ for our PSS people to connect, share ideas and help grow our sustainability community. 

What next?

There’s still lots more to be done but we’re proud of everything we’ve achieved so far. Our sustainability warriors have worked really hard this year and we’re looking forward to seeing what we can achieve by 2025!  

Want to get involved?  

If you’ve liked what you’ve read so far and would love to be a part of an organisation that’s passionate about people, our planet and supporting people to live their best life then please take a look at our jobs page, or you can see what volunteering roles we’ve got available by contacting our volunteer coordinator at volunteer@pss.org.uk. Sustainability at PSS – what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and how you can get involved!