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 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 the 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.
Successful community partnerships included: West Lothian Connected (NHS Scotland) which enabled the council and various agencies to reach members of the public whilst they were shopping through schemes such as No Smoking Day; West Lothian Council which led to the development of the Retail Steps training programme for schools which is now recognised by SQA; West Lothian College, a partnership allowing college departments to showcase their curriculum in the centre e.g. Creative Chef Competition and West Lothian Toy Appeal (Voluntary Action West Lothian) a six year partnership to collect funds for local children at Christmas.
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 Community Mark 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.”
Pictures available on request, subject to approval from Clarence House.