The city offices where staff can grow their own fruit and veg
EXPERIAN’S REGIONAL HUB, BUILT FOR HYBRID WORKING, SHOWS THE WAY FOR CITY’S CARBON NEUTRAL FUTURE
ONE of Nottingham’s “global success stories” has revamped its city campus which now features a new outdoor space with a honey bee colony.
Experian staff can even to grow their own fruit and vegetables while at the office.
The company, based just off Queens Drive, started out life in Nottingham in Talbot Street in 1967, and in 1969 a young Sir John Peace, who the building is now named after, became involved with the overall project after joining as a programmer. It is now a global success story.
More than 2,000 staff are based in Nottingham at the regional hub at NG2 Business Park.
It is this hub which has undergone a significant transformation as the company reduces the number of sites it has in the UK from 17 to five as part of a hybrid working strategy.
The Post was given a tour of the new outdoor space, which has gone some way to make the company’s UK operations totally carbon neutral.
Some of Experian’s new additions to its hub include a wildflower-packed car park with its own natural drainage systems, as well as electric charging points, its own honey bee colony, and an allotment where staff can grow their own fruit and vegetables.
Speaking of the impressive hub, David Mellen, leader of Nottingham City Council, said: “For some people their home is not a place where they want to be at work, they might not have a very suitable work space, they might have children or live in a shared property.
“I think coming to the office is a good thing.
“But for others, they can work perhaps more effectively at home.
“It is great Experian are creating a lovely work environment, but also one where they don’t expect every member of staff to be here 37 hours a week.
“I think every business needs to think about [the environmental impact], not everybody can do it the way Experian has with this sort of size and scale, but every business can do something.
“The quest for carbon neutrality in the city involves everybody, what you do with your own life, your own rubbish, your own garden, to try and enhance the environment, the biodiversity, the bee friendliness. “We have done it with things as simple as the central reservations on the ringroad and not just turned them into manicured lawns but wildflowers.
“It’s about being creative, and I hope other businesses that have started on this journey will follow Experian’s lead.”
David Bates, Group MD for consumer information and decision analytics at Experian, added: “Our big belief now is that hybrid working is here to stay.
“The days of going into the office five days a week – I do not think many businesses are going to go back to that.
“So you are having to create a space that is inspiring for people and a space where people want to come and collaborate with their colleagues.
“Part of the outside investment we make is actually making the environment people travel into attractive, pleasant and fun, and from our personal perspective as a business we have to find a way of reducing our environmental impact.”
The days of going into the office five days a week – I do not think many businesses are going to go back to that. David Bates