Katie Ovenden, Head of Group Sustainability, recently celebrated eight years with Goonvean Group, having started her journey with Goonvean Fibres before moving to Group. We sat down with Katie to find out more about her role at Goonvean, and gain some insights into the work she’s been doing.
What is your role at Goonvean Group?
My role within the Group is to look after sustainability from an environmental, social and quality perspective. I also took on a new role in 2024, overseeing our charity of the year partnership.
Which charity did the Group partner with this year?
This year we chose two: the Children’s Hospice South West and The Rotherham Hospice because they complement our businesses really well in terms of their spread across the UK.
How have you supported these charities?
Across the Group, people have been so enthusiastic and supported the charities by doing numerous challenges, including the National Three Peaks Challenge, skydives, bike rides and even a Martial Arts Marathon Dojo Day! We also hosted our first group-wide ‘Goonvean Games‘ sports tournament, which was an opportunity for employees across the Goonvean Group to socialise, have some fun and support our charities. The day included softball matches, lawn bowls, a hog roast and a charity raffle.
We’ve raised over £24,000 so far for our charities, which I think is a superb effort from everyone involved.
What else have you been working on?
We’ve been working incredibly hard on improving sustainability throughout the Group. Environmentally, we now purchase REGO certified electricity, have started a program of installing solar panels, and are looking at our consumption of electricity, gas and water across the Group. We want to see where we can really make a mark on reducing these, making our energy use more efficient and our operations more sustainable.
We also have an incredible opportunity coming in 2025/26 to take on a tree planting project in our local area. This will create several areas of woodland that can grow and thrive for the next 30 years, whilst offsetting emissions we cannot physically or immediately reduce.
In terms of quality, the Group have been providing support to our businesses to achieve ISO standard certification where appropriate, with a view to improving and streamlining the systems they use to manage this.
What was your work highlight this year?
Getting all the businesses together for the Goonvean Games was a really nice moment. It was a great achievement and a fantastic example of how 15 individual businesses could come together for a good cause.
It was also wonderful to see people from different businesses, in different roles chatting about all the great work we’ve been doing to bring the Group together, and how they’re starting to see the benefits.
How else has the Group made an impact this year?
All the businesses in the Group are here for their customers and constantly strive to deliver the best for them. But there’s a big part of being here for our communities as well. This includes both the communities in which we work and in which we live.
That’s part of the reason we’ve chosen to support the charities we have, but also why in 2024 we’ve chosen to invest in and sponsor sports teams, Young Enterprise days with local schools and the South West Business Council. 2024 has been such an instrumental year for the Group and has laid the foundation for change, so that we start 2025 with even more opportunities for staff to get involved with their local communities through the introduction of a paid social impact day.
Watch our conversation with Katie here: