Social Values - C. S. Todd & Associates

Social Values

Our company vision of “Keeping People Safe from Fire” is the foundation of our social value, corporate social responsibility and sustainability strategy. The company’s social value contribution is primarily through its high-level voluntary work, which has had a significant impact on fire safety that is of benefit to all of our clients as well as local authorities, Government, the business community and the wider public.

Volunteering

For 40 years, CSTA have regularly supported Government, British Standards Institution (BSI) and statutory bodies through work in the development of codes, standards and guidance, and have produced guides on legislation and fire protection.

The voluntary contribution of our staff, particularly our Managing Director, Colin Todd, to the enhancement of fire safety through education, standards work and committee service is funded by approximately 20% of our annual profit.

Colin Todd’s volunteering includes the following:

Professional Body Activities

- Board Member of the Fire Industry Association since 2009.
- Chairman of the Fire Risk Assessment Council of the Fire Industry Association since 2009.
- Vice Chairman of the Institution of Fire Engineers Register of Fire Risk Assessors and Auditors Panel.

Committee Work

- Institution of Fire Engineers’ representative on BSI committees FSH/12, FSH/12/1 and FSH/12/3, which are concerned with fire detection matters, and EL/1/1, which is concerned with emergency lighting standards.
- Co-opted independent expert on BSI committee FSH/12/4.
- Fire Industry Association representative on Scottish Business Engagement Forum.
- Fire Industry Association representative or co-opted expert on various working groups concerned with research or standards development in fire safety matters.

External Body Activities

- For fifteen years, until 2017, Industry Sector Expert for United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), which involved providing sector expertise to UKAS in their accreditation of certification bodies (such as BSI and National Security Inspectorate) that operate third party certification schemes for fire detection and fire extinguishing products and services for design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of fire detection and fire extinguishing equipment and systems.
- Following the fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017, Colin was co-opted onto an expert group tasked with advising Government on immediate actions in relation to the fire.
- Member of Building Standards (Fire Safety) Review Panel, tasked with advising the Scottish Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning on changes to the Building (Scotland) Regulations and supporting Technical Handbooks following the Grenfell Tower Fire in June 2017. This work led to significant changes to the Technical Handbooks including proposals by Colin for evacuation alert systems and floor/flat numbering signs in high-rise blocks of flats. Colin was also contracted by Scottish Government to draft a new standard on evacuation alert systems, which Scottish Government tabled to BSI for the purpose of producing BS 8629:2019.

Colin Todd’s voluntary activity has included the development of a wide range of standards relating to fire alarm systems and fire safety in general.

He was responsible for drafting the first version of BS 5839-6, the British Standard on domestic fire alarms. This key standard ensures the public are properly protected by smoke alarms in their homes; it included innovative recommendations on how such systems should be designed. This work has made a major contribution to public safety; smoke alarms are a major contributor to reducing fire deaths in the UK to their lowest since records began.

Research

We contributed funds and free consultancy time to a project in which BRE were engaged to carry out real time investigation of false alarms in the Greater Glasgow area for a period of several months. This ground-breaking project was the brainchild of Colin Todd. It was through our good working relationship with our client, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, that they agreed to take part in the research.

This has led to developments in the prevention of false alarms, including changes to the British Standard Code of Practice for Fire Alarm Systems.

Environmental

CSTA are committed to minimising the impact of our activities on the environment. This commitment goes back as far as the early 1990 when we undertook a study, on behalf of the Department for the Environment, on halon use in the United Kingdom. This was in relation to the potential for the elimination of the use of halons as firefighting agents in view of their ozone depleting effects. This report received wide acclaim and was notified to Parliament by the relevant government minister.

We recently appointed an environmental champion, Karen Haestier, to review our activities. The key points of our strategy to achieve this are:

- Minimise waste by evaluating operations and ensuring they are as efficient as possible.
- Minimise toxic emissions through the selection and use of our fleet and the source of its power requirement, with a policy only to purchase hybrids as company cars.
- Actively promote recycling.
- Meet or exceed all the environmental legislation that relates to the company.

To view our Environmental Sustainability Policy please click here.

As part of our corporate social responsibility goals, CSTA are corporate supporters of an award-winning Scottish charity whose mission is to rewild the Scottish Highlands by enabling the restoration of the globally unique Caledonian Forest. Planting trees is a great way to sequester carbon and we have partnered with Trees for Life to address our own carbon impact on the planet.

Tree planting also has many benefits beyond carbon sequestration. Our partnership with Trees for Life will help to rewild the Scottish Highlands, providing a place for wildlife to flourish. Restoration provides habitat, answering the urgent need to address biodiversity collapse. Tree planting also helps to reduce localised flooding and the Trees for Life volunteering programme helps people reconnect to nature, providing a myriad of benefits for their well-being.

We now transmit the majority of course notes for our training courses electronically, to avoid large paper printouts. Similarly, where possible our previous paper based analysis of delegate feedback from training courses is prepared electronically.

We are taking steps to minimise our environmental impact resulting from conducting our business functions. For example, where possible, all staff are required to use public transport, which has reduced our environmental impact significantly in recent years, particularly with regard to work carried out in London, where it is possible to travel to most areas by means of shared transportation. In addition, work is allocated to combine jobs where possible to minimise additional journeys. Where possible meetings are held via telephone/video call to reduce the need to travel. Likewise, all communications are undertaken electronically to reduce the use of paper. All our consultants work from their home locations allowing us to be flexible and reduce travel time and environmental impact as far as possible.