Ascot Racecourse

The Venue

Ascot Racecourse is a leading worldwide venue hosting numerous Group 1 horse races and home to the Royal Ascot festival of racing every June.

The venue offers facilities for crowds of 70,000 with a range of hospitality covering Michelin Star restaurants to street food villages. In addition to an extensive race calendar, the venue is a vibrant conference and event destination with 8,000 square metres of floor space set in 170 acres of stunning parklands.

The Remit

Since 2017 Ascot was progressing a number of strategic operational changes with the development of its 1711 by Ascot brand which delivered the catering, hospitality and soft services on site. Rockvolt was commissioned to undertake a detailed review of the cleaning and waste operations including the following:

  1. Review and analysis of current operations

  2. Recommendations of future strategy and operational delivery

  3. Development and coordination of tendering programme to gain the right service partners to work with 1711 by Ascot

  4. Award, budget management and mobilisation support

  5. Ongoing auditing, review and recommendations to continually improve delivery

  6. Recruitment of key inhouse management

In 2020 Ascot desired to progress their sustainability focus and reduce their impact on the environment. Working with Rockvolt the racecourse undertook the following:

  1. Implementation of clear organisation wide sustainability strategy

  2. Progression of staff engagement and cross departmental initiatives

  3. Target of achieving net zero

The Benefits

Rockvolt supplies consultancy, project management and ongoing monthly support to Ascot Racecourse. Working closely with the staff team, the impact of the cleaning and waste strategy led to the following actions:

  1. Improved staff focus on service delivery resulting in improved cleanliness and appearance of racecourse

  2. Increased segregation of waste streams improving recycling to over 50% of all waste

  3. Clearer understanding of the budgets and resources that are now utilised in a more effective and efficient manner in the programme of cleaning

The Sustainability Strategy has been progressed with the following benefits:

  1. Reduction in carbon emissions, positive impact in local community, improved staff health and well-being

  2. A clear framework that Ascot can work within, and staff can understand and progress initiatives

  3. Achievable targets and milestones upon which achievements can be celebrated

  4. Potential to be bench marked and audit against recognised sustainability

  5. Cross departmental linkages and working jointly to fulfil goals