Community Pay Back Scheme

In October 2018, the ‘Community Pay Back’ scheme was implemented at the Marsh Farm site. The scheme evolved from the team’s initial objective of encouraging staff to spend in the local economy to provide a much-needed boost to local business over the duration of the contract works.

The site is situated next to a small shopping area, comprising convenience stores, food outlets and a general hardware shop. To encourage staff to spend locally, the site team negotiated a range of discounts with the shop proprietors, ranging from five to 15 per cent.

This initiative is a ‘win-win’ for our staff and local businesses, but we wanted to take it a step further so that the wider community could benefit. We therefore decided to donate all the money saved to local community causes. The site team calculated how much the site workers spent in the local shopping centre by counting the value of the receipts that the staff put in a box on site. The total discount that staff have received was calculated, matched by ENGIE, and then invested back into the local community.

The first recipient of the ‘Pay Back’ was the Park Town Tenant and Resident Group (TARA) in Luton. We were contacted by Luton Borough Council on behalf of the group which was in desperate need of some office furniture. The group is well-established and very active in the local community but lacked a comfortable HQ from which to operate.