Almondvale is Scottish Business Awards Winner

Date: 1 Jun 2007

The SBC’s tenth annual awards ceremony was held at Edinburgh’s Prestonfield House, with HRH Prince of Wales as guest of honour and no less than 350 representatives from Scottish business life. The ceremony aims to reward businesses for integrating responsible business practice, making a positive impact in the marketplace, workplace, environment and the community.

 

Livingston’s Almondvale Shopping Centre is the only Scottish retail outlet in 2007 to achieve the Community Mark status which recognises the work of businesses in the local community. Requirements needed to achieve this award include a well integrated community programme with a number of employees actively involved and establishment of community partners.

 

Paul Marsh, centre manager for Almondvale Shopping Centre said: “I am delighted that Almondvale has achieved this prestigious and well respected award. We have developed a solid and successful community programme which has allowed us to form closer links with the local people and businesses of West Lothian.The award couldn’t have been achieved without the hard work and commitment shown by the centre’s marketing manager, Jennifer Bruce and her team of support staff.”

 

Almondvale identified three fundamental areas in devising their community programme. These were family health and family welfare, which directly affects the centre’s 10 million shoppers per year and 2,500 retail staff, and education, to ensure a ready supply of candidates with high calibre retail and customer service skills.

 

Samantha Barber, Chief Executive of SBC said: “Almondvale Shopping Centre has the community right at the heart of what they do. When the centre made the first written CommunityMark pledge, it didn’t take them long to achieve the much recognised standard. It was with great pleasure to award Almondvale Shopping Centre at this year’s awards ceremony.”

 

Scottish Business in the Community is Scotland’s leading organisation in Corporate Social Responsibility. The CommunityMark programme was developed by Business in the Community and has been running in England and Wales for five years and was introduced in Scotland in November 2004.

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