Novus Shortlisted for Two Building Communities Awards

We’re delighted to be shortlisted at the Efficiency East Midlands (EEM) Building Communities Awards in the Community Impact and Collaborative Working categories for our commitments in putting people first and taking a unified approach in the successful delivery of projects.

EEM Building Communities Awards

The Building Communities Awards is hosted by procurement consortium EEM Ltd, to recognise and celebrate professionalism, excellence and innovation within the housing and construction community. The awards ceremony is an opportunity for companies to network with around 450 professionals whilst showcasing their outstanding work at one of the biggest and best events of its kind in the East Midlands.

Community Impact Award

We have been shortlisted for the Community Impact Award through our approach to putting people first and helping our local communities via our Build Back Better initiative and our core set of values known as ‘The Novus Way’. Launched in 2021, our Build Back Better initiative aims to tackle some of the most prevalent issues that affect society, which sees us donate money, time and materials to a variety of causes across Great Britain under the three core themes – reducing poverty, good health and wellbeing and environmental action.

We also launched our Build Back Better challenge in early 2021, where a panel of Novus judges choose a nominated cause where the contribution will have the biggest impact, with the company donating money, labour, materials and time according to the project’s needs. Charities and community projects from across the country can be nominated by the public as well as our clients and supply chain partners, and winners to date have encompassed all three of the initiative’s core focus areas. Our winners include:

• Manchester-based homeless charity, Coffee4Craig – We transformed the centre’s underused communal space into a Wellbeing Zone complete with a salon corner and comfortable seating area. We also improved the centre’s washing and changing facilities and installed two new kitchen units complete with shelving for food donations.
• Moor Trees – Working in collaboration with The Guinness Partnership we funded the planting of hundreds of trees across the Devonshire county, whilst providing a team of volunteers to maintain saplings that were being grown in a Moor Trees nursery.
• Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons’ Trust – We supported the charity by providing labour and materials to deliver a much-needed urgent repair and redecoration of the Mosaic Trust’s community centre, after a leak caused the facility’s ceiling to collapse.
• Edinburgh Tool Library – We completed the repainting and redecoration of the library’s new, expanded premises – donating labour and materials.

Our culture of positive impact, reflected in the Build Back Better initiative, is built from within, with the scheme running internally and externally to provide a supportive, diverse and inclusive working environment where colleagues can thrive both professionally and personally. Examples of this include the introduction of our mental health first aiders and members of our senior leadership teams participating in volunteering events. Furthermore, we regularly collaborate to encourage wide-ranging support of initiatives from food bank donation drives to participation in National Inclusion Week.

Since its launch, our Build Back Better initiative has supported 258 projects, benefitting upwards of 7,300 lives across the country through donations of money, materials, labour and time, at an estimated cost to us of £155,000. Through this we have delivered an additional £2.1m in social and local economic value.

Collaborative Working Award

We believe creating strong partnerships supports the successful delivery of works and plays a key role in achieving our ambitious growth targets. This is why our teams across Great Britain are committed to taking a unified, partnership approach with our clients to improve innovation and problem solving.

It is through our Sustain contract with Redditch Borough Council that our collaborative approach has been recognised for this award. Having worked for the council since 2017, we were chosen for the coordination, design and delivery of Redditch Borough Council’s Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery Scheme. These works included cavity extraction and refill, solar PV, storage heaters and ventilation, all delivered to a tight deadline.

The works were PAS2035 compliant to ensure Redditch Borough Council were eligible for the LAD2 scheme’s funding. With such an important end goal combined with the time-sensitive and specific nature of the project, collaboration between us and Redditch Borough Council was essential from the very beginning.

To overcome challenges in the initial stages of the works as quickly as possible, our team established a partnership with Redditch Borough Council’s tenant liaison officer and retrofit assessors. There was daily contact between us and the council to keep up with the latest progress and developments, and to create alternative solutions to overcome any arising issues. This included  sending dual branded letters, texts, phone calls and emails to residents to minimise inconvenience.

Fortunately, our expert team was able to carry out the works to help improve residents’ health and wellbeing as well as reducing their energy consumption. As a result of its critical nature, we prioritised this project and brought in additional support from our trusted specialist partners to ensure it was completed on time and to the highest standard.

Our high level of communication – and ultimately collaboration – with Redditch Borough Council ensured the project met all requirements to receive LAD2 funding of over £280,000.

Simon Parry at Redditch Borough Council said:

“We’re delighted to have been able to use this funding to deliver more insulation improvements to the council housing stock in Redditch over and above our existing capital programme. It helps us take another step on the journey of improving the heating and energy performance of our properties as we work towards the national challenge of achieving EPC ratings of C or better in social homes by 2035.”

Awards Ceremony

The EEM Business Communities Awards ceremony will be held on Friday 3rd March 2023 at the Athena, Leicester. We’re very excited for the ceremony and can’t wait to see if we bring home a trophy -or two – on the night!