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Leathersellers’ Review 2024–2025
Left: Okikiade Oloyede, photographed while attending the Black Talent Charter event at Leathersellers’ Hall. Okiki is an alumna of the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools and the Leathersellers’ Foundation’s Student Grants Programme Below: Portrait of Nashly Castrillon, taken while on a work experience placement at Capital Generation Partners. Nashly is a holder of a Leathersellers’ Foundation Student Grant, and is also an alumna of the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools
Environmental, Social and Governance
Environmental Following the completion of a carbon emissions audit, data was used to compile and submit targets to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), an organisation providing certification of action taken to reduce carbon emissions. The targets were validated and published by the SBTi in December 2024. Approval of the targets by the SBTi, defined as goals in line to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, required the Leathersellers to make a commitment to: 1. M easure carbon emissions each year. 2. R educe Scope 1 (direct emissions) and 2 (electricity consumption, renewable, and non-renewable energy) carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. 3. M onitor and reduce Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions, including operations, property, and investments). 4. A chieve net-zero by 2050. As part of this commitment to decarbonisation, in January 2025 the Leathersellers’ Company joined The Leathersellers’ Foundation in moving investments to fund managers with a specific ESG mandate, thus avoiding companies and activities that create significant environmental harm. This represents the bulk of decarbonisation in Scope 3 emissions. The full effect of this action on carbon emissions will be included in the 2025 SBTi reporting year. With both corporate and Foundation investment portfolios now under active ESG management, short- and longer-term strategies are being explored for reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, such as 100% renewable and biogas electricity tariffs across the property portfolio. Looking at the environment of St Helen’s Place, we received a gold award and trophy from the Gardeners’ Company in recognition of new planting, which was reimagined and upgraded last year to enhance the street for the benefit of our tenants, members, staff, and the many City workers and tourists that visit often. This was part of the Flowers in the City campaign, a project running since 1948 that encourages companies to contribute to the City of London’s reputation as being an attractive and enjoyable place to work.
Social Work to realise and reinforce our historic purpose as a platform for opportunity continues at pace, including our charitable ambition as a funder. Our Added Value Programme is a particular area of strength as we seek to offer support beyond grant funding. This year we were again able to offer use of Leathersellers’ Hall for the benefit of partners and grantees by hosting events, from panel discussions and training days for grantees working to prevent and tackle the consequences of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to organisations with similar ambitions, such as Black Talent Charter who held their first C-suite readiness conference at the Hall in partnership with corporate signatories and the Clothworkers’ Company. The Leathersellers also supported attendance at the event by two grantee alumni, a governance partner from the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools and a member of the staff team. In addition, we were able to advance and develop our mentoring offering to current students supported by the Foundation’s Student Grants Programme. A new approach was trialled this year with ACEs charity grantee, Power2, which enabled enhanced professional matching including a separate group for medical professionals, both online and in person. Underpinning the Added Value proposition is the objective of the Company to support the Foundation to increase the impact of its work and find opportunities to transfer additional resources and capital. This year saw a £5.5m capital transfer from the Company to the Foundation’s endowment, in addition to four grants made by the Company totalling £454,000 and further direct Company giving of £316,193. Efforts have also been made to connect our alumni and education partners to opportunities to help advance social mobility. Recipients of the Foundation’s undergraduate Student Grants Programme and Sixth Form students from the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools were introduced to our property advisors, Capital Generation Partners, resulting in three work experience placements. In leather, we have retained commitment to our historic and living trade by recruiting new members from amongst
those working across the UK in various different parts of the industry, including design, fashion, tanning and leatherworking. We also supervised, and jointly funded, the cataloguing of the nationally important archive of Leather UK, which will help to protect, share, and celebrate the national history of British leather and provide an invaluable resource for researchers. The archive will be deposited at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, alongside those of other trade organisations. Governance As mentioned in this year’s Property Report we have now completed more than a decade of development work, and as such are moving away from a development model of asset management. Given this change, and to ensure that we fulfil our core strategic objective of long-term stewardship of our assets, the Property Committee and Investment Sub- Committee have been merged to create an Assets Sub- Committee. This will enable an overview of the entire portfolio
of assets, allowing for greater efficiency and identification of risk and opportunity. The Assets Sub-Committee will report into the Finance Committee. Reflecting the pattern of reporting by our committees, and with efficiency in mind, the number of Court (Board) meetings has been decreased from eight to seven per year. This year saw The Leathersellers’ Foundation take part in the Foundation Practice Rating, a project initiated to enhance the approach of all UK charitable foundations. Following detailed desktop review foundations are scored on diversity, accountability, and transparency and given an overall rating from A-D. The Leathersellers’ Foundation received an overall B as part of the 2023/2024 cohort. We will look to opt-in to the assessment in future years as part of a wider framework of continuous evaluation. The Leathersellers’ Foundation was also awarded Highly Commended in the Grant Making Charity Foundations and Trusts Benchmarking Survey 2025, which is part of the Charity Excellence Framework.
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