Governance

Purpose

Our purpose is for Sheffield to be a sustainable place to live and work for everyone.

​What does this mean? Sheffield will be sustainable when it creates an enduring way of life which meets the current ecological, economic, political and cultural needs of its community without compromising the ability of future generations to experience the same or better.

​Our mission

The Sheffield Sustainability Network exists to support and enable local businesses and organisations to develop and drive a sustainable economy in the Sheffield City Region.

Our principles

What are our values?

​We are governed by the five following principles:

​We are accessible and inclusive

We pledge that all members will be able to participate in the Network, regardless of their financial or other resources. SSN will not discriminate between people and is committed to reaching, working with and being representative of diverse communities in and around Sheffield.

We encourage members to make real changes

We pledge to be member-led and to be an active Network, which encourages, facilitates, inspires and empowers our members to take action to support sustainability. We encourage and support members to make real and meaningful changes for the good of Sheffield and the wider world.

We are honest and challenging

We pledge to root SSN in honesty and transparency, with science-based principles at the heart of our work. We are committed to challenge ourselves to achieve our purpose.

We are accountable

We pledge to be accountable, demonstrated by our commitment to a rigorous auditing process. We will openly report the sustainability metrics provided by our members.

We pledge to encourage our members to be committed to our principles and take action towards achieving sustainability in the organisations or businesses they represent.

We are resilient

We pledge that SSN will work towards becoming an ongoing Network, which is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.​​

Our policy

How will we fulfil our purpose?

• ​We are an independent, member-led community of businesses, charities and other organisations that are committed to building a sustainable Sheffield.
• ​Although SSN retains the right to work with political organisations, and seeks to influence them to advance SSN’s aims and purpose, SSN is not a political body.
• ​Under no circumstances, will we permit or tolerate free-riding or appropriation of SSN by members for “greenwashing” or commercial purposes.​

Our activities

• We facilitate knowledge sharing between our members about sustainable ways of working.
• ​We gather expertise about the best choices for relevant sustainable products and services from our members.
• ​We provide support and practical guidance to our members about becoming more sustainable, including access to a comprehensive audit to help our members assess and track the effect of their sustainability efforts.
• We actively promote our network and activities of our members which align to our principles, to educate and positively influence sustainability in the Sheffield City Region business community.
• ​We actively work to be inclusive and representative of diverse groups and community-led organisations in and around Sheffield, to help them to adopt sustainable policies and practices.