Sustainability at St Margaret’s House

Sustainability weaves through everything we do here at SMH. We are striving to reduce our environmental impact by implementing a series of measures that will help to reduce waste, lower emissions and support positive environmental initiatives for our local community.

Sustainability Commitments

  • SMH is committed to sourcing items from sustainable and environmentally responsible companies wherever possible.

    We endeavour to work with contractors who have a sustainable practice.

    This is to minimise the waste and carbon emissions we contribute through our work and activities.

  • Our Senior Management Team are participating in Carbon Neutral training through Julie’s Bicycle and Pilio.

    Achieving carbon net zero on our emissions is our ultimate aim, and we are enjoying learning how we can do this within the variety of ages and types of buildings that comprise the SMH premises.

    In 2024-25, we emitted 23 fewer tonnes of Co2 than the previous year. We calculated this via data entry through Julie’s Bicycle and Pilio.

Sustainability Priorities

  • SMH is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO), which means we receive funding to deliver work across the community.

    One of the key focusses of being a NPO is a commitment to environmental responsibility. As part of this, we report energy based data to Julie’s Bicycle on a yearly basis. This data collection is helping us to build a picture of our energy usage and how that translates into our impact and areas in which we can improve to reduce emissions.

  • Part of our sustainable practice is to raise environmental awareness within our community.

    We are always looking for more ways to do this, but some of the things we have done so far are:

    • Ayoka Thrift sales! In 2024, we held four events where clothes and homeware that would otherwise go to the company we work with to ‘rag’ unwanted textiles, are given another opportunity to be re-homed. We plan to hold more of these events in future years, so do follow Ayoka on social media to get the info!

    • Repair Cafes - these enable our community members to bring clothing and electrical items to be repaired by our skilled volunteers, including learning how to mend and alter clothes.

    • Produce seasonal menus for our vegan cafe, The Gallery Cafe.

    • We hold quarterly Tenant Forums, which gives us a chance to check in with the range of tenant organisations here at SMH, as well as an opportunity for them all to meet and exchange information about their work and practices. We alternate between community and environmental focusses for these meetings, but generally they cover a bit of both each time.

  • Beccy, our Arts & Wellbeing Director and Co-CEO is now certified as Carbon Literate, following a training course.

    Over summer 2025, SMH staff will complete Climate Justice training with two of our tenant organisations, Fevered Sleep and 1927, facilitated by Dan De La Mott.

    Emily, Senior Operations Manager has participated in Carbon Net Zero training through Julie’s Bicycle and Pilio.

Sustainability Changes we’ve made

  • Following the successful relocation of the RHS gold medal winning ‘Talitha Arts Garden’ in May 2023, we were granted funding from the Veolia Environmental Trust to redevelop the rest of the SMH garden to be step-free and biodiverse.

    We worked with Joe and Laura of Carey Garden Design Studio, who created a beautiful design that echoed their work with the ‘Talitha Arts Garden’, and extended the areas of planting. This has improved the biodiversity of the garden through: increased amounts of pollinator friendly plants (Geum, Nectaroscordum and Lamium); shrubs and trees provide shelter for birds and height variation for nesting; an ecosystem for invertebrates is provided through the ferns and woodland planting, along with the natural mulch from the trees and shrubs dropped leaves. Invertebrates play a crucial part in the biodiversity of the soil, for both plants and birds.

    We have an SMH Gardening Club who meet once a month to care for the garden, alongside our regular weekly gardener who works to care for the garden throughout the year.

    We are building leaf mulch cages to create soil from the leaves we collect that won’t fit into our compost bin!

  • We work with ReFood to recycle the minimal food waste from our Gallery Cafe (including peelings, food left on plates, and unsold food), staff and tenants. We have food caddy bins in all of our staff / tenant kitchen areas, and these get emptied into the larger ReFood bin.

    ReFood collect the food waste and take it to their Anaerobic Digestion centre, which converts food waste into energy that they supply to the National Grid.

    We also recycle our used cooking oil through Quatra who turn it into biofuel.

  • There are separate recycling and general rubbish bins in all of our venues across the premises.

  • We work with the company Tech Recycle, who collect our unwanted / end of life technical items and equipment, and they refurbish what they can and sustainably recycle the rest.

    In 2023, SMH and a variety of our tenant organisations recycled 285 items with Tech Recycle, another 172 plus a box of mixed WEE in 2024, and 95 items in 2025 - so over 550 items in three years!

  • We work with the seasons to be responsive to internal temperatures within the buildings, rather than having a fixed time frame for the central heating to be on. We also have controlled heating cycles throughout the day.

    The radiators all have TVRs on them, so people can control the temperature in their workspace.

  • We are installing motion sensor LED lighting in our communal spaces and toilet facilities. This ensures that the lights are only on when that space is in use.

  • We use reusable cups for our meetings and hires and offer a discount for customers to the Gallery Cafe who bring their own reusable cup or container for their takeaways.

  • All SMH staff use public transport, cycle or walk to work.

    We encourage our tenants, audiences and customers to use public transport - SMH is located close to Bethnal Green underground station, as well as to both Bethnal Green and Cambridge Heath overground stations, and a Santander bike rank. There are also several bus routes in this area.

Growing Communities

We’re proud to be a collection point for the Growing Communities (GC) veg scheme – a North London based, community-run organisation that connects people with organic produce from London and beyond. GC takes sustainability seriously while ensuring farmers are paid fairly (over 50% of the cost of your bag goes directly to the farmer). They source veg as locally as possible and only work with organic certified growers who care for the soil and protect biodiversity. You can play a part in building a fairer, more climate-friendly food system one carrot at a time.

Learn more

SMH Cleanup Hub

We are very happy to be part of Cleanup UK’s network of Cleanup Hubs!

This means we have a selection of litter picking equipment that you can borrow, free of charge, to be a Green Hero and clean up your community as a group, or individually.

On site we have:

  • x10 litter pickers

  • x10 rubbish bag hoops

  • x10 high vis jackets (as in the photo!)

  • x24 pairs of gloves

What you will need to do to arrange your own litter pick:

  1. Check out Cleanup UK’s website for lots of info and guidance.

  2. Email SMH Cleanup Hub to let us know the date and time you are coming, so we can give you access to the equipment, help you liaise with Tower Hamlets Council and source rubbish bags (TH branded ones).

  3. Log the litter you have collected via the QR code provided

Sustainability Changes we are currently researching:

  • We have identified a significant amount of repair work to be done on the roofs across the all of the buildings on the SMH premises, some of which are flat roofs; these would particularly lend themselves to the installation of solar panels, which would then factor into a sustainable energy supply.

  • We are conducting an energy usage review of the whole SMH premises, with the aim of being able to utilise data to prepare for our gas boilers ‘end of life’ and more sustainable technologies to replace them, for example, thermal heat pumps.

  • There are several doors and windows in the SMH buildings that are in the process of being repaired.

    Insulation is something we are working on in the short term to be able to provide a better thermal barrier around doors and windows.

Learn about Ayoka, our Charity Boutique
Learn about our Repair Cafes
Find out about the SMH Garden