The Kindness Economy- Why all businesses need to start being kind

27th April 2021

The Kindness Economy, coined by Mary Portas, is about making businesses better by making people and the planet just as important as profit; thus making the world a kinder place. 

Consumers are looking for so much more from companies. With an ever growing increase in demand for transparency in business practices and awareness of corporate social responsibility, brands are now faced with having to show how they treat people (both internally and externally) and how their business affects the planet. 

Trust in companies is dwindling and millennials believing the main priority of a business is to ‘improve society’ (second only to generating jobs) with 40% of respondents in the 2018 Deloitte Millennials survey stating so. 

Customers want to see acts of kindness from companies, be it something they have done for an employee or how they are helping the war on climate change. Even reviews on websites can be seen as an act of kindness- someone is leaving that review in the hope they will help someone else coming to that site. 

Here at Urban Creation, we are big fans of the Kindness Economy because: 

Offsetting your carbon emissions is important 

As a serviced apartment provider our guests travel to come to stay with us. Becoming increasingly aware of our carbon footprint, we decided to partner with Trees4Travel, a tree planting project that aims to offset your travel CO2 emissions so that our guests can offset carbon emissions by planting trees with their stay.

Plus, to further support our pledge to help climate protection, for every guest that plants a tree we will also plant one. For just £3 a tree every guest can plant a tree which will help to restore ecosystems and maintain forests to remove CO2 from the air. 

This simple act will help reverse climate change, creating a safe sustainable future planet.

And so is travelling sustainably

Offsetting your CO2 emissions is one thing, but exploring the city sustainably once you get here is another. We’ve partnered with Voi Scooters, so our accommodation guests can travel and explore Bristol via electric scooter! 

Guests will be provided with vouchers that they can use during their stay and Voi are also providing them with helmets for safe travel.

Voi was built on a vision of cities free from noise and pollution and champion a transition towards shared, multimodal and zero- emission mobility. Offering a climate neutral mobility service via their e-scooters, all of our guests can now be part of this movement by adopting a more green and resilient mode of transport whilst visiting the city.

Think local. Shop local. 

The pandemic has hit all businesses in one way or another. As a local business ourselves we wanted to find ways that we could all support each other when restrictions began easing. 

We have partnered with local businesses who have kindly offered our guests access to exclusive discounts and offers during their stay. So not only can we promote these businesses and put them in the forefront of our guest’s minds, but we can also deliver a better service. 

Long stay guests need TLC

Staying away from home for a longer period of time is tough. And with changes in length of duration of stay, we quickly realised that we were seeing more long stay guests due to work commitments. 

To make our guest’s stay with us as comfortable as possible, we launched our exclusive long stay offer for those staying with us for 30 days or more.

This exclusive offer provides a tailored discount package price based on requirements and duration of stay, complimentary parking, an account manager and free upgrades. 

We love our period properties just as much as those who stay in them 

Restoring properties is our thing. And that’s why people love our buildings. Not only do we love restoring period properties, but when doing so, we always try to retain as much of the history as possible. I.e. restoring and keeping period features and retaining the look and feel of the exterior. 

What’s more, we love finding out about the history of our properties as they all have their own unique story to tell. And when we do, we love to share this with our audience. 

Our newest development in Doughty Street has a really interesting past. View it here. 

Lowering our development’s carbon footprint is important

Aside from trying to retain as much history as possible, we have modified our building developments to help lower our carbon footprint.

This includes complying with the Bristol City Council’s policy to secure at least a 20% savings in CO2 emissions from energy use in new developments through on-site generation of renewable energy. The city’s OneCity climate strategy aims to make Bristol carbon neutral and resilient to a changing climate by 2030.

We support this through means of:

Everyone should know about the best places to visit in Bristol 

We want our guests to experience the most out of Bristol and love it just as much as we do.

By providing information on the best places to visit (including the best parks when we were in the middle of lockdown), our guests can plan their visit accordingly and know the best places to check out.  

View our top picks here: 

Plastic is the devil 

We are currently looking into how we can limit our single use plastic across our serviced apartment portfolio. With a steady flow of guests continuously in and out of our apartments and thus a regular change of plastic packaged toiletries, we are aware that we need to do more in this area of the business and we are currently looking into various options.

We have recently introduced new chemicals into our housekeeping routine. These water soluble cleaning sachets are ready to use within a measured dosage system helping to cut down on storage required and single use plastic counterparts.

By minimising the use of plastic we can help do our bit in the fight against climate change.

And finally, because everyone loves coffee (!)

10am is our team’s coffee run. It’s this coffee run that gives us as a team, all a chance to have a little informal catch up with each other and it brings some good vibes to the office.

Plus, we all love coffee so it’s just an excuse to drink more…..

We all still have a long way to go until the Kindness Economy is fully integrated into all aspects of business and across all industries; however, this change is real and will continue to grow and be a big part of consumers buying decisions. 

In the words of Mary Portas herself: Restore. Regenerate. Respect.