"Enlightened Self Interest"

From the very beginning, part of the fundamental ethos at Attic Self Storage has been to have a diversified approach to business. Our founder has always believed in balancing the needs of the business with that of our customers and the local environment in which we operate. This is still true of the company today, and enshrined in the principle of “Enlightened Self Interest” which guides our business and investment philosophy.

In order to instil this principle across the wider business we have developed, and continue to evolve, our own Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) policy. The aim is to help us keep a perspective on things that are important to the wider context in which we operate such as sustainability, our environmental impact and the communities and people in the locations where we operate. Having an ESG policy enables us to demonstrate that we are a responsible company, measure our improvements, hold ourselves accountable for our actions and strive towards continuous improvement. We plan to publish our targets and achievements in due course but in the meantime, we wanted to share a few details of the areas that we will focus on in the short term.

Below you can read more about the sorts of things that we are already doing to bring our policies to life. This includes links to other areas of our site where we can offer more details.

The Environment

For us, this covers both the local environment in terms of our impact on our local community (including aspects such as the visual appearance of our buildings, health & safety and our impact on the macro environment) as well as factors such as electricity consumption, water consumption and long-term sustainability. We believe that we can help to drive change in wider society by taking a strong and honest approach towards our local environment which will then impact on the wider environment.

• LED Lighting: We consider the impact of our internal operations on the wider environment. We believe it is important to have a well-lit storage area and to minimize the environmental impact of achieving this. We have had LED lighting installed across all of our sites since 2012.

• Provision of green spaces: We operate within Greater London where pollution levels are some of the highest in the UK, and where green spaces can be hard to find. We are committed to incorporating green spaces into all our new sites. This will bring benefits in terms of air quality as well as encouraging wildlife. Our site at Bow has a wild flower garden that is sewn anew every year with a special mix of seed to encourage, bees, butterflies and birds. We have incorporated green spaces inside our facilities in the form of living walls, and add green roofs to our buildings where possible.

• Visual appeal of buildings: It is important that our buildings fit naturally into their environment, being sympathetic to the local architecture. All our new facilities are designed with this in mind. Our aim is to make a positive contribution to the streetscape and the local area. In the case of the store at Harrow, we replaced an unsightly, decaying car wash building with a new state of the art facility equipped with solar panels and landscaping. As part of this process we have also cleansed and decontaminated the soil on site.

• Noise disturbance: Whilst self storage is typically a very benign use of space, this is something that we will always aim to try to minimize, particularly during the construction and development of our facilities. As an example, we employed CFA piling during the construction of our Harrow facility as opposed to more traditional methods.

• Use of environmentally sensitive materials: From the chemicals used for cleaning to the materials used for construction, they can all have a detrimental environmental effect. Our aim will be to increase our awareness of the materials that are used both for everyday upkeep of our facilities as well as in construction and to select materials that minimize environmental impact. In the construction of our Harrow site, we’re pleased to be able to say that we have either recycled, retained or re-used 91% of all the pre-existing materials from the original site.

• Solar PV panels & Electricity Generation: As part of a wider sustainability approach to across our new sites, we look for ways to minimize the impact of our business operations. Where possible, all our new sites will have solar panels installed as standard with a connection to the grid to feedback unused power generated, with the aim of being carbon neutral or carbon negative.

• EV charging points: To support and encourage the use of electric vehicles we provide free vehicle charging points at all of our sites. We believe that by providing these, we are helping to drive awareness and uptake of electric vehicles, benefitting local air quality and the wider environment.

• Electric vehicles: With an increasing number of sites across London, we naturally have the need to transport stock and materials between our sites. In order to minimize the environmental impact of this activity, we invested solely in electric vehicles, enabling us to carry out the necessary journeys whilst not contributing to poor air quality or pollution levels in the vicinity.
  

Social

Here we focus on the ethical code by which we run the business, and our approach to all stakeholders including the communities in which we operate. We aim to take a fair approach, to build on our relationships and make a positive contribution with our interactions. Being a service-led business, our teams are at the heart of our operations and brand. The employee strand of our policy aims to demonstrate and build on the strong role that our teams play within the success of the company. It is important for us to be able to focus on developing and nurturing our teams. We very much see ourselves as part of the communities in which we operate, and we therefor aim to take a considerate approach from supporting local causes to minimizing any negative impact our operations may have or potentially have on our neighbours. We view CSR as a fundamental part of our social approach.

Our Customers

• Data Protection: Keeping our customer and peoples’ data secure is of the utmost importance to us as a business. Any personal data is held securely within our business software and we have rigorous controls in place to keep this secure. To demonstrate that we are continuing to seek ways to improve this and our other processes we hold an ISO accreditation.
• Health & Safety: As well as ensuring that our facilities operate within the required Health & Safety regulations, our teams are equipped to give additional support wherever necessary, above and beyond that envisaged by legislation. Our store teams all have fire marshal training and are first aid trained. We have installed defibrillators in all our sites. These are registered with the NHS so that they can be accessed and used if there is a local emergency.
• Covid Measures: Even in a pre-Covid world, Attic has always sought to give our customers the ability to manage their accounts online as much as possible. Whilst continuing to operate in accordance with the regulations during the pandemic, our teams have ensured that the facilities are kept as clean as possible for visiting customers whilst also encouraging customers to use online options such as virtual tours or video calls to keep the number of people on site at any one time at a minimum.

Our Suppliers

One area where we aim to make significant improvements is in our supplier selection. As we are now expanding this is of increased significance for us as a business. We are developing specific targets in areas such as making sure that we select ethical suppliers, understanding local supply options and those suppliers who are themselves taking a strong environmental and ethical stance in their own production and supply chains. We will also consider our own processes in selecting suppliers and reviewing these to ensure fairness.

Our People

Our people represent the Attic brand to our customers and for this reason have always been a core focus for the business. To date we have committed to, and implemented, several initiatives to support our staff but the development of the social element of our ESG policy has enabled us to identify further areas that we would like to explore. These include, but are not limited to, HR polices, well-being development and personal development opportunities such as volunteering in the local community. More details on these will follow but for now we can demonstrate steps we have taken in the areas below.

• Fair Rewards: We have been an accredited London Living Wage employer since 2014, and as such we are committed to paying every member of our team the London Living Wage as a minimum. We also support he movement to drive awareness of this amongst other businesses.

• Employee Equity Participation: We have in place staff performance incentive plans, including profit share plans and staff equity plans. These provide opportunities for our people to share in the success of the business in a fair way.

• Structured Development Plans: We have implemented an on-boarding process for all new joiners to our store teams. This process means that anyone in our team has a thorough understanding of our business, values & culture and brand ethos before interacting with customers. The process then moves on to training on our specific sales processes. From there each employee will develop their own personal goals, aligned with their manager. This process means that all members of our team have a clear understanding of their role in the business, what they are aiming to achieve and how they will develop personally and professionally along the way.

• Values & Culture: As we are a growing business, we want to ensure that we continue to have our customer focused approach across all members of the team and geographies. We have recently developed an aligned set of core values as a business wide team which every member identifies with and will act according to in their daily working lives. This is something that we will continue to evolve with feedback from the teams as our culture develops.

• Support: As a people- focused business, we support our teams in every way we can. A responsible, ethical employer, we provide generous support structures for our staff as they journey through life’s inevitable ups & downs. This stretches from access to free, confidential advice, support & counselling services, to coaching and career support as required.

Our Community

• Local Employment: We aim to employ staff who live within the area local to the store in which they work. This has a number of benefits including minimising traffic, having a team that knows the local area in addition to supporting local employment.

• Support of local causes: We aim to play a positive role in our local communities. This is often where our customers live, and we like to be able to lend our support to causes close to their hearts. We follow our customers’ guidance as to the type of causes we should support and we have actively supported over 25 worthwhile causes to date, many of these on a regular and ongoing basis. We offer support either in cash, kind or with professional expertise & connections, depending on the specific need. Our customers are keen for us to support issues tackling poverty and supporting children in particular. We will continue to develop our activity in this area, looking to incorporate additional elements including volunteering where possible.

Governance

Governance is the means by which we set targets, monitor and improve our performance. We have robust processes in place and are continuing to add to these to enable us to effectively track performance as well as to ensure that we are making continuous improvements. It is our expectation that these processes and measurements will continue to evolve as the company develops and grows. We are aiming to achieve alignment in the approach and values of all employees and the way in which we carry out our roles. We have more work to do in this area but we already have strong processes in place in relation to the running of our stores.

• Culture: Culture is a crucial part of any organisation, and forms a critical role in enabling us to achieve our objectives. We have consulted with our people and defined our corporate culture together with them. We will continue to review and update our codified culture, as the business, our people and the environment in which we operate evolve.

• Transparency: We manage our business in an open and transparent manner. Our people have the opportunity to get involved with senior management meetings, and we hold regular communications sessions to assist in their understanding of our goals and decision making. In addition to sending out a regular newsletter, every member of our senior management team, right up to the CEO, is available to be contacted by any member of business at any time.

• Board Membership: We actively encourage and work with our people to develop their talents, in order that they might aspire to becoming members of the board. We have successfully made internal appointment to our board and will continue to do so.

• Independent Oversight: Our executive board members, responsible for the day to day running of the business, are assisted by non-executive board members with a wide experience set. This keeps us grounded, challenges us and reduces governance risks in the business.

• Internal Auditing: We have a strict auditing process in place to regulate the running of the stores. This covers all aspects of store operation and is clearly documented and tracked to enable us to pick up and resolve issues quickly.

• ISO Accreditation: This award demonstrates our commitment to adhering to processes and moreover, to continuously strive to improve on our own performance year after year.