The ACC Liverpool Group, owner of M&S Bank Arena (cap. 11,000), Convention Centre (1,350) and Exhibition Centre Liverpool (7,000), has launched its Social Value Plan aimed at creating positive social, economic and environmental impact.

The company said the strategy focuses on five key areas – community; environment, sustainability and climate action; procurement with purpose; event industry impact and people.

The commitments include supporting the delivery of the government’s pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Other responsibilities set out in the plan include maintaining zero to waste status; supporting the development of low carbon events and the delivery of diversity and inclusion targets across event programming and recruitment.

The group is forming a Community Advisory Group, which will aim to deliver more than 200 hours of volunteering in the community each year via its new Staff Volunteering Policy; a series of donations to local foodbanks, charities and community groups.

The company also plans to deliver educational and career support sessions with higher education institutions and provide apprenticeships.

Among its environmental commitments for next year are installing LED lights across the campus and achieving ISO150001 – a voluntary standard for designing, implementing and maintaining an energy management system.

The group also plans to provide service partners and suppliers with a Social Value Charter to support its Social Value Commitments for 2022. This will also concern the company’s staff, including a wellbeing strategy and introducing new policies such as agile working.

ACC Liverpool managing director Faye Dyer said, “We are part of a complex, fast moving, international industry. The world of events is constantly evolving and we want to be in the vanguard of businesses using these developments in the most positive way.  We plan to adopt areas and ideas from across the most relevant global, industry and regional plans to create something which is unique to us, deliverable and rooted in who we are, the things we care about most and is most impactful to the environment, people and communities around us.

“We appreciate that our organisation and the events industry are still in pandemic recovery mode but we have set ourselves measurable targets which we are committed to implementing and delivering. We want to be a company that strives to do the right thing and contributes to society.”