Privacy Policy

Introduction

‘Ashden Sustainable Solutions, Better Lives’, otherwise known as Ashden Org (“we/us/our”) is a fund-raising organisation that promotes transformative climate solutions from around the world.  Our awards, events, networks, and analysis support climate innovation in the UK and developing countries around the world.  Our core initiatives include;

• Annual Ashden Awards to celebrate the work of the best in sustainable energy,
• Ashden events and conferences to showcase sustainable energy leaders,
• UK liveable cities programme,
• Let’s Go Zero sustainable schools.

We are one of 20 independent, charitable trusts established by members of several generations of the Sainsbury family. We share offices located at The Peak, 5 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1AP with charitable trusts which are operated by the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts.

Keeping your personal information safe is very important to us. We are registered as a data controller with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. Our registration number is Z956113X. Ashden is committed to the protection of your personal data we process in line with the data protection principles set out in the UK General Data Protection Regulations (“UK GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act (2018).

We have policies, procedures, and training in place to help our employees and volunteers understand their data protection responsibilities and our data protection principles. 

We have a nominated member of staff who serves as our Data Protection Manager. If you have any questions regarding how we collect, store and process your personal data, please email info@ashden.org. We have also appointed an independent Data Protection Officer at data protection consultants, Evalian Limited who can be contacted by email at dpo@evalian.co.uk.

This privacy notice explains what personal data we collect from individuals who visit our offices or contact us by email, phone, attend one of our events, donate to us or send us other communications (“you/your”).

We place great importance on ensuring the quality, confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data we hold and in meeting our data protection obligations when processing personal data. Ashden is committed to protecting the security of your personal data. We use a variety of technical and organisational measures to help protect your personal data from unauthorised access, use or disclosure.

We update this privacy notice from time to time in response to changes in applicable laws and regulations, to our processing practices or other services we offer. When changes are made, we will update the date at the top of this document. Please review this privacy notice periodically to check for updates.

What information do we process?

Information we gather about you from public records and independent research

In fulfilling our fund-raising objectives and to support our Ashden Awards programme we undertake our own research and identify charity practitioners, investors, innovators, policy advisers, and specialist technical consultants in their fields in anticipation of supporting promotional initiatives in specific topics of interest to the Trustees. We will process information about you that is available from public sources, generally limited to:

• Your name (first and last)
• Organisation name (if any)
• Your email address
• Your area of interest or specialism

Information you provide to us

We process all information you give us, either through corresponding with us by post, telephone, email, web form, or otherwise. This includes information, such as your email address when you respond to our invitation to donate to us, or participate in our events, meetings and presentations, or attend social functions linked to us.

If you make a donation to us in a personal capacity

If you make a donation online or purchase a product from us, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by PayPal, our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. We may already hold personal information from your enquiry with us, but in addition we may collect the following additional information:

• Your name (first and last)
• Your e-mail address
• Your donation or purchase history.

Information processed by us when you accept an invitation to attend one of our award ceremonies

We process the following information:

• Your name (first and last)
• Your email address
• Your company
• Your phone number
• Your dietary requirements

Information processed by us when you sign up to the Let’s Go Zero 2030 campaign

We process the following information: 

• First name and surname
• School type and school address
• Your email address
• Your role / job title
• Number of pupils and staff

Information we may obtain from other sources

Indirectly, we may record or receive additional details about you from

• Public information sources, such as your website, FaceBook page, Linked-In page, or from news articles and public registers, such as The Charity Commission.
• People who think that you may be interested participating in our activities.
• External sources such as publications and works, external reviewers or advisors when you apply for or are awarded a grant from us.

Cookies & CCTV

We use cookies on our website (https://ashden.org/) to analyse traffic to the site. Cookies are small text files that are downloaded to your device when you visit a website, unless you have set your browser to reject them.

We use cookies to remember your preferences, display content that is more relevant to you and improve your overall experience of our site. To learn more about cookies and what you can do to opt out of receiving them, please view our Cookies Notice <insert link>.

Our website contains links to other websites run by our award winners and other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to the Ashden website, LESS CO2 website, and the Let’s Go Zero website. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

If you visited our website from a third-party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third-party site and recommend that you check the policy of that website.

To ensure the safety of all our visitors, contractors and staff, Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts and the Landlord’s property managers capture and record CCTV images at the main entrances to our office buildings.

Purposes and basis for processing your data 

We will only use your personal information for the purpose which it was provided to us for and in ways that you would reasonably expect. We may use your data for the following purposes and on the following lawful bases:

Sharing your information

We will not sell or exchange your personal information. We will only share your personal information where we have given your consent, where it is in our legitimate interest, or we are required to do so by law.

We may share your personal information with third party organisations who will process it on our behalf. This is strictly governed by data processing terms which confirms that the personal information we provide will only be used for the purposes we specify and will be processed in line with data protection legislation.

Other third parties we may share your personal data with include:

• Public bodies such as the UK Charity Commission, Inland Revenue, or the police. The legal basis in these cases is compliance with our legal obligations.
• In case of an emergency we may also share your information with the relevant public health and emergency services and contact your next of kin. The legal basis for processing in such cases is to protect your vital interests.

We are committed to transparency and publish a report annually about the trust’s activities.

International transfers 

Ashden Org operates primarily in the UK, but from time to time may support promotional events taking place overseas. All personal data processing and award administration takes place in the UK. Additional processing will take place for the duration of the event at the location, including our awards events taking place outside the UK.

Ashden Org works with several advisors and suppliers and it is possible that we will share your data with other third-party suppliers that process your data in countries outside the UK where the data protection laws are not equivalent to those within the UK. Where this applies, we do so, either on the basis of an ‘adequacy decision’ or using Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission and recognised by the UK which contractually oblige companies in those countries to the standard expected within the UK. More information about these is available here.

Your rights

The UK GDPR provides you with certain rights in relation to the processing of your personal data, including to:

• Request access to personal data about you (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you, and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request rectification, correction, or updating to any of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
• Request personal data provided by you to be transferred in machine-readable format (“data portability”).
• Request erasure of personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove personal data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
• Request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you (e.g. if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it).
• Object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances. This right may apply where the processing of your personal data is based on the legitimate interests of Ashden.

These rights are not absolute and are subject to various conditions under applicable data protection and privacy legislation and the laws and regulations to which we are subject.

If at any time you decide that you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, or if you would like to exercise any of your rights as set out above, you can contact us by email. See ‘Contact Us’.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

In addition to the above, please note that you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are concerned about the way in which we are handling your personal data.

Data rentention period

We will retain your personal data for as long as it necessary for the purpose of our relationship or until you object to us processing it or withdraw your consent. We will not retain your personal information if it is no longer required. In some circumstances, we may legally be required to retain your personal information, for example for finance or audit purposes.

Contact us

You can contact Ashden in relation to data protection and this privacy notice by writing to:

Data Protection Manager

Ashden Org

c/o Sainsbury Charitable Family Trusts

The Peak,

5 Wilton Road,

London SW1V 1AP  

Alternatively, you can email us at dataprotection@sfct.org.uk