Working with schools and colleges close to our developments is an important part of what we do and enables us to teach young people about the careers available in the industrial and logistics sector, give them first-hand experience of the construction process and also help them better understand the role we all play in protecting the natural environment. For the past 11 years, our sustainability programme, has worked with The Planet Mark and The Eden Project to take the sustainability message into schools local to our Prologis Parks. Education officers from The Eden Project visit the schools and talk to the children about sustainability and how they can play their part in protecting the planet.
Every year, Prologis employees across the globe take part in a day of volunteering to deliver change for a local community project or charity. Over the years we have created a community garden in Birmingham, built new outdoor teaching and play facilities for a Warwickshire school and created new paths, animal shelters and an outdoor classroom for an animal charity that helps both animals and those with physical and learning disabilities.
We have a long-standing and trusted relationship with our supply chain and, in 2018, we became the first UK property company to require our suppliers to sign-up to our Social Value Supply Chain Charter. This Charter provides a framework, within which our entire supply chain can join with us to deliver more value to the communities where we are based and where we are building. We knew from our ongoing relationship with our supply chain that many of our trusted partners were already 'doing the right thing' when it came to promoting local skills and employment and building safer and greener communities. This Charter is simply a way of strengthening and demonstrating the positive outcomes which arise from our shared mutual values.
As well as providing on-site security services across our network of parks, we also work in partnership with the local community to promote safer spaces. In 2018, at Prologis DIRFT in Northamptonshire, we sponsored two Police Community Support Officers in partnership with Crick Parish Council after funding for the existing PCSO's was cut. Thanks to the 'sponsor a PCSO scheme' we were able to fund 80% of the annual cost with Crick Parish Council funding the remaining amount, enabling vital community policing work in the area to continue.
