Kimpton Ltd. are a family-owned Wirral based company, and we believe in leading the thinking through our corporate and social responsibility. We also back this up with the way we act. Since the business was formed in 1963, we have striven to be a force for good in supporting our customers, our team and the area in which we live and work.
We do this through our commitment to supporting our team in their own charitable endeavours as well as giving time, money and support to local charities and local volunteer run organisations.
We are passionate advocates of work-based training and experience and actively encourage our team to have a positive impact on the community in which we all live. You can download our full Corporate and Social Responsibility Policy here.
Almost all of our team live and work within Wirral. We have offered work experience to many Wirral school children and undergraduates. We have recruited over 100 apprentices within all areas of the business and many still work with us today, some in very senior positions. We encourage our team to have a positive impact on the community in which they live.
Kimpton Ltd. is a family-owned Wirral based company, and we take our corporate and social responsibility seriously. We were doing this many years before the term had even been invented, because we believe it’s the right way for any business to behave. Since the business was formed in 1963, we have striven to be a force for good in supporting our customers, our team and the area in which we live and work.
As a team, we are involved in many projects in our community and here are some recent examples:
Kimpton recently spoke at a Business breakfast event with the University of Liverpool Management School and Wirral Chamber of Commerce. The theme was “Demystifying ESG” and speakers Professor Chris Florakis, Matt Breakwell and Mike Cockburn shared both academic and industry perspectives on the meaning of ESG, it’s key components and how to implement an ESG policy in line with sustainable development goals.
Kate Dalton of The University of Liverpool said “The work that Kimpton Energy Solutions have been doing around social value is truly inspiring – they really are leading the way for other businesses and it was great to hear about some of the projects they have undertaken in areas such as skills/training, people and carbon and waste reduction.”
As part of their role as Enterprise Advisors to the Liverpool City Region Careers Hub, Matt Breakwell and Grace Roberts from the Kimpton team, recently spent the morning with the Year 7’s from Prenton High School for girls, working with them on their Enterprise Challenge.
The intrepid Kimpton team have completed the Lego Walk of Pain in West Kirby, on Wednesday 24th August at Hickory’s Smokehouse. The event was organised to help raise money for the brilliant Cash for Kids Charity and over £1,000 was raised by the Kimpton team.
Kimpton have been encouraging businesses in the Liverpool City Region to join them in offering work experience and apprenticeships to young people. Over the summer we are recruiting three more apprentices and delivering work experience placements to college students to give them valuable site experience in building services engineering. We’ve also hosted a work experience placement for a student from St John Plessington College.
As part of our work on the refurbishment of the Capital Building in Liverpool, we were tasked with the disposal of two Evacuation Chairs. These are chairs specially designed for mobility-impaired people, who are secured and transported from a building, usually via stairways during an emergency.
The two chairs were in perfect condition and hadn’t been used, so we scoured our local network to find new homes for both of them.
The first went to our good friends at Claire House in Liverpool and the second to Bromborough Village Community Association. Hopefully neither of them will ever be used in anger, but it’s great that they are able to be reused and available for their intended purpose, within our local community, by two charitable organisations.
As specialist M&E Contractors, Kimpton don’t often get asked to provide gardening services but, as part of a reconfiguration of the Capital Building’s atrium restaurant, our client MAPP asked us to remove some ornamental lime trees that had out-grown the space. Rather than allow them to go to be recycled and maybe even landfilled, we worked together with colleagues to find them a new home at the NHS Alder Hey Academy.
The Kimpton team, working with the Estates Department at Liverpool Hope University saw the plight of the people of Ukraine. After an internal collection and support from the management, we donated first aid kits to support them.
The whole Kimpton team contributed food and toiletries to donate to the Charles Thompson Mission. We delivered to them at Christmas previously, but their work is never-ending in their aim is to help men and women who are homeless, poor and needy, out of poverty.
The team working on the £5m refurbishment of the Capital Building, recently went over and above to find community schemes and charities that could make use of the carpet tiles that we’ve been reclaiming as part of the project. The 12 pallets were redistributed charities and social enterprises across the region.
For the third year running, Scott Bennett and Steve Loughran of Kimpton were out, collecting Christmas trees for Nightingale House Hospice. This year, they collected approximately 75 trees across Buckley, Ewloe, Hawarden, with additional collections in the Garden City area. They also completed four trips to the recycling centre to drop off the trees, before heading out again for more.
The intrepid team from Kimpton made up of Rob Brine, Phil Higham, Megan Swanick, Callum Morgan, Ellie Jervis, Tony Ferguson, Keith Watts and Paul Cooper took part in a sponsored skydive from 15,000ft – the highest in the UK – at Black Knights Parachute Centre in Cockerham, Lancashire, to raise money for Cancer Research.
The team paid their own expenses and the money they raised – which was over £1,850 including the cash contributions from the team at work, which all went to the charity.
On what has to be one of the coldest days in recent years, Steve Loughran, Kimpton Site Supervisor, volunteered to deliver food parcels for the Shaftesbury Youth Club – Known as Shaftes to locals.
Shaftes have handed out over 1,000 food hampers in the last five days including 17 schools around the Wirral area who nominate families with children. His work also took him to Park Primary School in Wallasey to hand out over 100 hampers to more families who are struggling in the current climate.
Even with this work done, Steve then went to 27 individual houses to hand-deliver further food parcels to families with no transport or who were having to shield. The final 30 or so hampers were returned to Shaftes for distribution around the Prenton area to the elderly and housebound, who they also provide for.
There’s a full day at work and then there’s Keith Marsden’s day at work. Working with our good friends at Incredible Edible to extend the irrigation system we installed previously, he was attacked by bees. Rather than be put off and retire hurt, Keith donned a beekeepers outfit and completed the job.
Hot on the heels of our talks during Industry Week with Wirral Met College, we recently delivered a ‘Meet the Employer’ Session to Coleg Cambria in Deeside, in conjunction with Kier.
In 2020, we generated 5,626.50kg of waste from our Bromborough Offices of which 0% went to landfill. This is a 10.66% reduction over the previous year. Of the waste we produced, 1.687kg, or 30% was re-cycled and 3,939kg, or 70% was used as Refuse Derived Fuel(RDF).
As part of Industry Week, organised by Wirral Met College and in conjunction with Morgan Sindall Construction, today Greg Percival and Anthony Whittle delivered two individual sessions with current students on the electrical services and plumbing training routes. They talked about life and progress within the Building Services industry.
Greg Percival, Electrical Contracts Supervisor, talked about how he has progressed and what drives him on. Anthony Whittle, Mechanical Contact Supervisor, gave a very honest account of what made him choose plumbing as his career. The whole session was brought together by Matt Breakwell.
From Left Anthony Whittle Matt Breakwell and Greg Percival of Kimpton
To follow on from a year of CSR initiatives, the Kimpton team pulled together like never before to run a whole series of events and initiatives to raise money and give time to causes close to our hearts.
Scott Bennett and Steve Loughran of the Kimpton Contracts team again gave up their weekend to help with the Nightingale House Christmas Tree Collection. It’s an initiative started by the Wrexham based hospice to remove old Christmas trees and save people that painful, pine needle ridden trip to the recycling centre, that we all know and dislike so much.
The combined effort saw the group collect over 1,000 Christmas trees to be recycled and raise over £10,000 for patient care at Nightingale House Hospice. That’s a weekend well spent.
There was a food drop-off point in the offices for much of December for the team to contribute and with a lot minute rush to ensure some good fresh provisions, there was a good selection of staples and treats for families delivered.
Charles Thompson’s Mission is an independent charity, right on our doorstep in Birkenhead. They focus on providing food, clothing, care and support to the homeless and poor of Wirral.
This was again a major success and finally Kimpton BDM, Matt Breakwell worked to what a Christmas Jumper looked like. Fines were levied for those who chose not to join in the display and a very helpful £67 was raised for the Save the Children Charity.
A new one for 2020 was a Service and Maintenance team Bake Off. Held over two days and two heats, the participants were given tasks to follow, from savoury to sweets and pastries. Every entry was (surprisingly) edible and some were even absolutely lovely. There was no overall winner, but two took joint first place. These excellent Galaxy Chocolate Brownies and the Bacon and Pea Pasties.
Surely the winner, for comedy value alone, should have been the Sausage and Leak pie?
Another new one for 2020 was Secret Santa. With a £10 budget and random pairings there were some excellent gifts. For the hirsute Matt Breakwell, a gift of Baldy’s Buffer and beard balm, for Phil Higham, some ever-useful guitar-shaped teaspoons. Richard Kimpton, Kimpton CEO matched the entries with a £10 donation and £180 was raised in total and donated to The Salvation Army to help with their work. Well done and thank you to Meg Swanick for organising it.
The Kimpton team working on the Avril Robarts site in Liverpool held a collection again this year and made a donation to the brilliant Cash for Kids charity. So far, since it started, £12,739,193 has been raised to support 254,352 children across the UK.
Colin Swanick, Kimpton Service Director, went all out for November and as well as raising a few eyebrows with his slightly terrifying look. He also raised an impressive £240. The charity raises money to make a real difference in mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer. Can you shave it off now please Colin?
We’re delighted to have been accredited by the Living Wage Foundation as a Living Wage Employer. There are around 7,000 Living Wage employers in the UK and all have agreed to pay their staff a wage which meets everyday needs. This is considerably above the Government minimum wage standard.
We’re perhaps even more proud to be able to declare that Kimpton were already meeting this standard, without needing to make any adjustments. We have ALWAYS properly valued our team and the contribution they make to our business and our community.
We have also become signatories of the Prompt Payment Code. This is a voluntary agreement by businesses throughout the UK that have agreed to pay their suppliers fairly and on time.
The code sets standards for payment practices and best practice and is administered by the Small Business Commissioner on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The Code covers prompt payment, as well as wider payment procedures.
This was an even simpler standard to achieve and we were accepted almost immediately, as again, we were already complying with all of the conditions required by the standard.
We are proud to announce that we have committed to honour the Armed Forces Covenant. We recognise the value serving personnel – regular and reservists, veterans and military families – contribute to our business, our community and country.
An unsightly gap in a playground area had left teachers needing to keep children away from the windows. The initial solution was both ugly and unsafe.
When we saw the appeal for help from the school, it was another we couldn’t resist.
The solution of purpose-built planters, served the dual purpose of beautifying the space and at the same time, giving the children their own flower garden to nurture. This fits within Key Stage teaching and otherwise could be quite hard to deliver in a city school.
When lockdown struck the Kimpton team reacted in the way that has become the norm over our 50 year history. The reaction was universally, how can we help?
Here are a few of the initiatives from the team.
1. Visors for the NHS
Richard Kimpton, our MD, volunteered to join an initiative with Richardsons Healthcare to make visors for the NHS and other front line staff. Along with his family, they made 1,000 of the 128,000 that were donated at no cost, by the 104 families who stepped up. Here’s him hard at work.
2. Donation of our PPE Stock
At Kimpton HQ, we hold quite a lot of stock PPE for our site teams to draw on when they need them. We were lucky enough to hold six boxes of the 3M™ Aura™ Disposable Respirators that were the very ones which the NHS were desperately short of. So, we did what we could and donated all of our stock, again at no cost to the teams at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital who were working so hard to protect and save lives.
3. Skin care and hand sanitisers
This was more an individual effort by Phil Higham. He has family who work within the NHS so was so moved by their constant discomfort in the early days of lockdown, he started a collection within the team and used the funds to purchase and donate lip balm, hand sanitisers and moisturiser to front line NHS staff.
4. Remaining on call for the NHS
When it became apparent that the whole of the UK was going to have to lock down, we asked for volunteers to remain on call, to serve our NHS and critical care clients. We have aways promised that we will be on call to them 365 days per year – including Christmas, whenever they needed us.
Five of our team stepped forward. Paul Bowes, Dean Rugen, Mike Jebb, Sam Wilson and Phil Higham. They all remained on duty for the entire lockdown period to cover and heating, ventilation or electrical issues.
This may seem like less of a sacrifice now the initial COVID storm has blown over a little. At the time, they stepped forward, there was very little known about the virus and it was sweeping across the world, closing entire nations as it passed through.
It’s a remarkable feat of selflessness and for us, demonstrates that our commitment to the community in which we live and work, runs throughout every layer of the organisation. It’s easy to say you care, but when the chips are down, the brave and committed step forward and show they care. Thank you.
Just before the lockdown, the Kimpton team volunteered their services to help convert a former garden centre site into a usable base for the brilliant Incredible Edible project in Knowsley.
Our role was to survey all of the existing pipework and infrastructure, remove what was scrap, repair what could be repaired and install an entirely new irrigation system, using the existing rainwater storage system, into the poly tunnels. Here’s the project underway.
Three of our team, Mark, Keith and Christian, worked incredibly hard to complete the project, prior to lockdown taking full effect and we’re now proud to say it’s in full use and growing food for the people of the Knowsley Community. Here’s an image of the finished poly tunnels.
You can read the full Incredible Edibles CSR project description here.
Two of the Kimpton team gave up their Saturday to collect Christmas trees for Nightingale House Hospice. The initiative raised over £5,500 for the charity and was supported by 16 local businesses. You can read more about that here.
The Kimpton team donated food and other goods and delivered them in time for distribution over Christmas
Just before Christmas we held a Christmas jumper day for the team. Money was raised for Save the Children by paying to take part and being fined for either a poor choice of jumper or not taking part!
The Kimpton team are on-site at Avril Robarts in Liverpool and with our partners Willmott Dixon, the team collected money and toys for the charity Mission Christmas – Cash For Kids
We also worked on a collection and donation for Knowsley Food Bank which is part of The Big Help Project. You can see Matt, our BDM from the Kimpton team here with a very full van, being donated.
We believe that work experience for a student is only as good as the effort you put into yourself as an employer. We therefore offer genuinely worthwhile Work Experiences for students who show a real interest in the world of work. A recent one we completed with Josh Anderson that you can read about here, where it changed his whole thinking on his route to complete his degree.
Wirral Metro Swimming Club is a performance swimming club based at Europa Pools, Birkenhead. One of our team volunteers for them and Kimpton became sponsors to add to their much needed funds for attending swim meets that are held UK wide.
Our Managing Director Richard Kimpton trained for over six months, lost huge amounts of weight in order to take part (and win) a white collar boxing event that raised many thousands for the Charity.
We have worked with Anselmians for many years and been the lead sponsor in numerous events at every level of the game, from the mini rugby and the women’s team, right through to our involvement with the recently promoted first team that now play in the North One West League.
Two of the Kimpton directors were part of a team that took part in a sponsored run from Leeds to Liverpool over four days – a distance of some 130 miles. As part of the fundraising, the team also contributed £10k towards the complete refurbishment of their playground.
The Kimpton team running 130 miles over 4 days for Merefield School Southport
We have Sponsored teams in both the Princes Trust and Macmillan Cancer Care Golf Days.
Working with our friends at Trustland, we completely refurbished the changing rooms at this boxing club. They began back in 1982 with the motto “We never turn anyone away” which fits in perfectly with our CSR aims. They aim to give youngsters the opportunity to learn the art of amateur boxing in a safe environment. One of our apprentices, Connor Leatt is an active member.
Working with this great sporting club we reconfigured their existing heating system to suit the buildings new use as a sporting venue. It had previously been used as office space.
In a recent project, Lee Williams our storeman/driver organised an U14’s football charity tournament that managed to raise in excess of £600 for the Clatterbridge Cancer Charity. The charity is doing fantastic work and are in the process of building Liverpool’s first cancer hospital in the centre of the city.
Lee the Kimpton Stores Superhero with his certificate after raising money for Clatterbridge.
At Kimpton Energy Solutions we work hard to reduce our environmental impact, both in the way we operate as a head office and on-site in the projects we deliver. Our overall aim is to ensure that all operations are carried out in a way that achieves the highest standard of Environmental care (ISO 14001) and Occupational Health and Safety (ISO 18001). These aren’t just tick box standards but are ways of thinking and working that are championed throughout the business.
You can read our full environmental policy here.
We believe in delivering quality throughout the business and have maintained the Quality Standard BS5750 since 1989 and were the first to achieve this for any company of our size in the North West.