More info about us & our hub
Everyone is welcome
Hub members benefit from our activities and are part of a rapidly growing network of likeminded people. Since the first Centre in Aldershot opened our hub has grown from a handful of experts and enthusiasts, to currently being over 60,000 people and businesses.
Collaborate with us
There is no pressure to collaborate with us, you can just join our hub to get our news and find out the discounts or offers we negotiate on behalf of hub members. Those who do collaborate with us are sharing their skills and resources to benefit from getting a lot more in return from us, such as 100% discounts off our services or working alongside us to gain sales, marketing and business opportunities.
Verified experts & businesses in our hub
Our sustainability consultancy, training and contracted work is only given to real experts and genuinely sustainable enterprises in our hub. To verify you we need to know more about your business and hear recommendations from others in our network before we will verify you.
Here is a bit of background info, just in case you don’t know this stuff!
Bricks and Bread Sustainable Living Centre is a social enterprise, we are completely independent and do not rely on grants to deliver our social benefits. Our purpose is to make it easier for people to live, work and build sustainably. By working together this can happen quickly for the benefit of society and the planet, but if this adaption doesn’t happen fast enough we are creating enterprises and solutions to help people cope in a crisis.
Who runs the company?
Trudy Thompson created the company and oversees its operations from our Centre in Aldershot.
Assisting her in shaping the future of the enterprise with innovative ideas are young people aged between 12 – 19 years old. Trudy invites 10 of them to attend board meetings and have responsibility for setting short, medium and long term plans for the business.
We do not have employees or volunteers, instead we give our work to experts and small businesses in our hub.
What about franchises, who is running them?
Franchisees are operating replicated versions or parts of our business operations at the centre in Aldershot, it is a more formal way of collaborating with us than being a hub member, as franchisees sign a license agreement for 5-10 years which gives them access to our systems, central marketing, sales and professional services. The franchise fee also covers the cost of attending the Change to Save training programme of advice and on going mentoring to help them create their own Sustainable Living Centre business.
Our work with young people
Trudy and hub members run sustainable innovation and social entrepreneurship activities with large groups of young people (over 100+ at a time) with schools, universities and business schools. These activities are creative, fun and engaging, they are designed to empower young people and gain from their fresh ideas!
Also at the Aldershot Centre we provide two week work experience opportunities mostly in our waste reuse business to teenagers especially those with learning difficulties or complex disabilities.
What else do we do?
Our premises are operated so people can use them to work, meet and share their knowledge about eco building, sustainable innovation and social enterprise.
We earn money from a wide range of services which includes venue hire, events management, consultancy, reusing waste activities and incubating enterprises.
What else does Trudy do?
Trudy is a eco builder who creates developments, a social entrepreneur and business mentor for social and sustainable ventures.
Trudy developed Change to Save her programme of advice, training and mentoring, which shares the techniques and knowledge Trudy has learnt about sustainable innovation and social enterprise to inspire other entrepreneurs and support them in growing their business.
This year Bricks and Bread (Investment) Ltd is being launched by Trudy to provide a £100m fund to invest in eco building, sustainable innovation and social enterprise ventures to finance land and property, to support our social franchise network, those enterprises incubated beyond start-up at Bricks and Bread or collaborative projects between expert hub members.
