Our 2023 Sustainability Report
Positively impacting on communities and the environment
2023 marked a milestone year as Liverpool ONE not only celebrated its 15 year anniversary, but also exceeded £3m worth of grants, awarded to charities and community groups across the Liverpool City Region by the Liverpool ONE Foundation.
2023 was also the year when Liverpool hosted the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine, an event that brought Ukrainian culture to the Mersey, a time when we were United by Music. But 2023 was so much more…
Our communities are the lifeblood of the work we do at Liverpool ONE.
Our 2023 Highlights
Reached £3m grant distributed via the Liverpool ONE Foundation. £277,725 distributed in 2023.
Retained Green Flag for Chavasse Park for the 11th consecutive year
250 local students and 20 schools participated in Christmas Launch event
Maintained 100% Zero waste to landfill, diverting 2,560 tonnes from landfill
95,499 kWh clean energy generated by our solar panels
Hosted 100 students through Industry Days and Brand Experience Week
Launched Nature Connection Sessions on Chavasse Park
Co-hosted Accessibility Forum with ACC Liverpool
Helped over 50 community groups and charities fundraising over £20,000.
Transformed Memorial Garden to mark Eurovision celebrations
Hosted over 50 community events including LVP 3x3 Basketball competition, ChessFest, Young Veg Market.
1,000 trees distributed working with The Mersey Forest
20 organisations benefitted from LiverpooL ONE team volunteering
We take pride in protecting and maintaining our natural environment.
Environmental Initiatives
Waste Management
We maintain a 100% zero waste to landfill commitment, diverting 2,560 tones going to landfill. On site we recycle 41% of the total waste, the rest is reclassified to identify further recyclable materials. We have ambitious targets to increase our recycling rates and we are working with our tenants to reduce waste and improve recycling practice. The remainder gets either transformed into construction materials or turned into energy at an Energy From Waste facility.
Aiming to minimise our impact to the environment, we have been working with partners and organisations across the region to donate materials no longer needed at Liverpool ONE. Some examples include the donation of over 20 wooden bins and 1,751 litres of hand sanitiser to Everton in the Community and 8 tonnes of grit donated to Biffa to use on their open service yard.
The Waste Management System in place at Liverpool ONE continues to
be ISO14001 accredited which helps organisations reduce their environmental impact while growing their business – ultimately achieving sustainable success.
Green Energy Generation
We continue to produce electricity with the solar panels installed at Liverpool ONE, annually producing 95,499kWh.
Environment Awareness Initiatives
We Hosted our first cohort of Carbon Literacy training within the Liverpool ONE Team, training 15 team members as Carbon Literacy Champions across the organisation.
We continue our commitment to encourage responsible shopping with regular communications shared with our visitors and followers on social media and our website.
In June, we hosted one of the stages of the Running Out of Time Relay, the 2,661km relay from Ben Nevis to Big Ben raising awareness on climate emergency.
The team and local school children took part on the relay and participated on environment awareness initiatives.
In July, working with local schools we hosted the annual Young Children’s Veg Market on Paradise Street, giving the opportunity to local school pupils to sell their home grown vegetables at Liverpool ONE.
During November the inaugural Nature Sessions took place at Chavasse Park working with Camp Curiosity and nearby centre Pagoda Nursery. The session saw young pupils learn about their local environment, taking part in bug hunts, bird watching and craft-making.
Free Travel
Working with Merseyrail, we run free travel days throughout the year
with over 20,000 residents in the region benefitting from free return tickets to Liverpool city centre on the Merseyrail network.
Green Spaces and biodiversity
Chavasse Park has held the prestigious Green Flag Award since 2013, which reflects on its cleanliness, litter management, overall condition, biodiversity and the quality and frequency of activities hosted at the park.
In 2023, we improved 120sqm of additional green spaces across Liverpool ONE. We also continue to be home to over 100,000 honeybees with beehives located on the rooftops of Liverpool ONE.
Working with The Mersey Forest, we distributed 1,000 trees to local residents during our Christmas launch event in November.
Nature Trail and Heritage Trail
To promote our year-round commitment to sustainability education, we continue to offer the Nature Trail all year around as well as expanding the Heritage Trail to feature the Memorial Garden.
Memorial Garden
Working with partners across the city and volunteers from the Ukrainian community groups we introduced new plants, flowerbeds and poetry connected to Ukraine to commemorate Liverpool hosting Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine.
Memorial Garden is located at a cross section of the boundaries of Liverpool ONE, the Baltic Triangle and the Waterfront. Here once stood St Thomas’s Church of the inner-city parish.
New plants and flowers that are significant to Ukraine, along with common types that traditionally represent themes of love, family, beauty, youth, hope, wisdom and truth, were planted to create an inviting and peaceful space.
Poetry panels with references ranging from historical representations of home and hearth by poet Shevchenko in 1847 in Beside the house, the cherry’s flowering…, to a recent poetic cry from current Ukrainian soldier Vyshebaba in the stunning new elegy To My Daughter…. The mix of old and new chronicles the literary heritage of Ukraine, also including contemporary young poet Yuliya Musakovska.
This initiative would not have been possible without the financial support of Liverpool ONE, Grosvenor, McAleer and Rushe (developers of a building adjacent to the garden) as well as the volunteering support of Pagoda Nursery, Liverpool City Council and the Ukrainian refugee community.
Keeping communities at the heart of Liverpool ONE
Communities & People Initiatives
Liverpool ONE Foundation
The Liverpool ONE Foundation continues to invest in community projects that promote positive mental health and wellbeing amongst our city’s young people. Since its launch in 2009, it has helped almost 500,000 people and distributed over £3m in grants working with charities and community projects across Liverpool City Region. In 2023 alone £277,725 worth of grants have been distributed to 20 organisations. An expanded description of the organisations benefitted from Liverpool ONE Foundation grants can be seen here.
Culture and wellbeing
In the past 12 months we supported cultural events and community groups such as Homotopia, dot-art schools, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, Heritage Open Days and Biennial, as well numerous choir performances and charity collections.
We supported events taking place in Liverpool such as the Bambis National Breastfeeding Awareness Week Picnic, Walk of Remembrance for Slavery Remembrance Day, European Dance Spectacular & Parade and other family friendly large scale events including ChessFest, Youth Social hosted by National Museums Liverpool and the inaugural LVP 3×3 basketball tournament at Chavasse Park.
Two of the main spotlights of the year were Eurovision and our collaboration with Liverpool Empire Creative Learning team involving hundreds of schools pupils from 20 schools in the region at the Christmas launch event at Liverpool ONE.
The end of the year saw the launch of our Culture Partners programme aimed at community groups and organisations who are keen to promote and celebrate culture through displays or performances at Liverpool ONE. Building on the success of our established cultural collaborations that see over 100 artists and organisations showcasing their art and talent at Liverpool ONE every year, we are enhancing how we support groups across the region who will benefit from step-by-step guidance on delivering activity in public spaces safely and effectively, the chance to display and perform in high footfall areas across Liverpool ONE and the benefit of in-house marketing and PR support.
We continue to support the Culture & Creativity Awards and Wirral Sports Awards during 2023, maintaining our commitment to support young people and culture across the region.
Young people and Mental Health
We work closely with charities and community groups funded through the Liverpool ONE Foundation and invite them to Liverpool ONE regularly to highlight their mental health services to young people in the city.
Through the year we are involved in numerous initiatives to support the wellbeing and mental health of visitors and the communities across Liverpool City Region.
In February we hosted a full week of activities and workshops during Children’s Mental Health Week involving Ykids, Conquer Life, Open Door Charity and Creative Spaces Co. Our Happy to Chat tables return every year providing a friendly and inviting space to enjoy a conversation with friends and new people.
We also supported the work of Open Door Charity with their Bazaar sessions hosted in cafes across Liverpool ONE in the summer and while working with City of Liverpool College we assisted with their flashmob for World Mental Health Day in October.
Skills and Talent Retention
Working with schools, colleges and universities we give hundreds of students a deeper insight into the retail and hospitality sector by hosting industry days during January and February, when we open the doors of Liverpool ONE to visitors from universities.
2023 saw the inaugural Brand Experience Week in June when 15 students aged 14-17 experienced the different functions of Liverpool ONE over a working week.
All for ONE
We continue with our team the mental health and wellbeing programme ‘All for ONE’ led by our Wellbeing Champions organising anything from sport activities and cooking to training and awareness activities. The programme will expand during 2024 to include our stores and restaurants.
Within Liverpool ONE, we have trained 25 people on mental health skills in the past 2 years and we have 5 fully trained Mental Health First Aiders across the organisation.
Our team continues to give back to the community, with up to 2 paid days for volunteering available for each team member. During 2023 our team supported over 20 organisations across the region including Strawberry Fields, Everton in the Community, Centre 63 and We are Juno.
Eurovision
Liverpool was honoured to host the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine in 2023. We worked closely with city partners, cultural organisations, community groups and the Ukrainian refugee community to make sure Ukrainian culture was
central to in the preparations for the event.
Below are some of the best examples of this collaboration:
Piano performance on one year anniversary
In February we invited talented local Ukrainian pianist, Alisa Bushuieva, to play piano following a one-minute silence that marked the anniversary since the start of the war in Ukraine. In a solemn and poignant moment, our team came together with members of the public to pay our respects to the Ukrainian community.
Pysanka Giant Eggs Display
Giant eggs designed by children from across the Liverpool City Region and the Ukrainian community were displayed on South John Street. The display featured seven eggs, one for each city region, plus an additional egg to represent Ukraine.
The designs reflected Ukrainian culture and traditions, those of the other competing Eurovision countries and the wider Liverpool City Region communities. Inspired by the Ukrainian and Eastern European tradition of egg painting, Pysanka Eggs was a partnership between Liverpool City Council and Liverpool ONE. The project was part of EuroLearn, made possible thanks to funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund with additional support from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The People’s Flag
‘The People’s Flag’ Project was a mass participation choreograph film that took part on Chavasse Park. The event saw 1,000 people wearing colourful blue and yellow ponchos and choreographed to create shapes designed to deliver a unique, warm welcome to all Eurovision-comers and honour Ukraine. This event was part EuroFestival.
Tickle the Ivories Pop up
Our piano festival, Tickle the Ivories, returned for a 3-week pop-up to champion local talent and fill the streets of Liverpool City Centre in the run-up to Eurovision. Local artists were asked to reskin the pianos with Ukrainian and Eurovision-inspired designs.
Stage on the Park
Over on Chavasse Park, we hosted a free-to-attend week full of programmed dance, theatre, and music performances taking place on a specially-installed stage from Monday 8 May until Saturday 13 May.
For the first three days, in partnership with Culture Liverpool, EuroCamp took over the Stage at Chavasse Park featuring stars of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK as part of a programme of arts, cabaret and music performances commissioned for EuroFestival, the 14-day cultural festival across Liverpool featuring Black Gold Arts, Hackney Showroom and Homotopia.
On the remaining three days, Liverpool ONE’s community-led performances showcased up and coming local talent with staged performances planned in partnership with LIPA, LIPA Sixth Form and City of Liverpool College.
Soloveiko Songbird Nightingales Game
We teamed up with global technology experts Thoughtworks to create a virtual gaming experience for children, taking inspiration from the Soloveiko Songbirds trail in Liverpool and the digital model of the city of Liverpool created by the University of Liverpool. The new gaming initiative stood as a legacy for children and families to enjoy, with virtual and augmented reality technologies creating an exciting and interactive experience.
Sustainable Fashion Catwalk
Following the success of Eurovision, we partnered with Liverpool John Moores University and clothing brand, Be Positive Taylored, to create ecological messenger bags, headgear, including unisex outerwear and t-shirts using the Eurovision flags and banners that decorated Liverpool ONE. A catwalk will take place in Spring 2024.
