How we use your information
About this policy | Why we process data | The lawful basis for processing personal information | Our legitimate interests | Embedded content from other websites | Cookie policy
About this policy
At any one time CSE has up to 100 different and separately funded projects underway, all of which support our mission to tackle the climate emergency and end the suffering caused by cold homes. A significant proportion of these projects involve the acquisition and processing of some personal data.
We’re committed to processing this data lawfully, safely and securely and have stringent data security and data protection practices in place. This policy gives a broad overview of how the organisation as a whole processes personal data, but if you would like to find out how the project you are involved in is processing your personal data, please contact privacy@cse.org.uk and someone will be in touch within 30 days to answer your questions.
References to ‘we’ or ‘us’ are to the Centre for Sustainable Energy, registered charity number 298740, registered company number, 2219673. Our registered offices are at St James Court, St James Parade, Bristol BS1 3LH.
Why we process data
There are many reasons why we process personal data, including but not limited to:
- Giving advice on keeping warm at home and energy efficiency improvements.
- Administering grants, funds and loans.
- Providing mentoring or advice to groups or individuals on topics like community energy, low carbon planning and community development.
- Organising and holding events, workshops and consultations.
- Carrying out energy audits, technical assessments or measuring energy usage.
- Carrying out research such as surveys and interviews.
- Contacting others working in the energy sector and those who we work with collaboratively to influence policy.
- Updating people about the work we are doing through our e-news, impact report and annual report.
- Evaluating and improving the services we offer and the work that we do.
- Supporting human resources and administrative functions – like processing payments and recruiting staff.
The lawful basis for processing personal information
The lawful basis for processing your data will depend on how you are interacting with us and what your relationship is with us. Below is a short overview of the different lawful basis we are using to process personal data:
Consent
In some situations we will ask for your consent to process your data. This applies to our e-newsletters. It may also apply to some of our other projects and research activities.
Contractual obligation
Because we have a contractual obligation, for example to provide you with something you have purchased from us or contracted us to provide.
Statutory obligation
We are obliged by law to process certain types of personal data, for example, processing salary information for taxation. In some extremely limited circumstances we may rely on vital interests. This would only be in situations where we needed to process data in order to protect someone’s life.
Our legitimate interests
These include:
Providing comprehensive advice through our advice services
In order to provide comprehensive advice on energy it is necessary for us to collect certain personal information so that we are able to give accurate information and relevant support.
Maintaining relationships with relevant business contacts
This includes people working within our sector or with whom we have a professional relationship. We may process personal information in order to inform people of our work, events and activities, coordinate collaborative work, or to invite people to participate in research or policy work. It also includes processing personal data for the purposes of highlighting the need for and benefits of policy change e.g. to MPs, relevant local authority personnel or other policy makers. It further includes occasionally sending materials about our work by post (e.g. our Energise newsletter and annual report).
Human resources
It’s necessary for us to process certain types of personal data in order to manage our relationships with our employees, volunteers and trustees. We also consider it in our legitimate interests to process personal data for the purposes of recruitment.
General operation and administration
This includes responding to solicited requests and enquiries, complying with internal and external governance procedures, financial reporting and communicating for purposes such as facilities management.
Carrying out research to support our charitable objectives
We consider it to be within our legitimate interests to invite people to participate in research projects that work towards achieving our charitable mission.
Contacting people to inform them about services of benefit to them
This includes contacting people to let them know about services, specific activities, projects or events which may be of direct benefit to them or where they are likely to have a professional interest e.g. contacting neighbourhood planning groups to inform them about financial support for their activities.
We have balanced our legitimate interests against the rights and freedoms data subjects have enshrined in law through the General Data Protection Regulations and consider that they have a minimal privacy impact. You have the right to opt out or object to our processing of your data on the basis of legitimate interests. You can do so by emailing privacy@cse.org.uk and we’ll respond within 30 days.
Sharing personal information
In certain situations and for some projects, we will share your information with other organisations. This may include the funder or other project partners (e.g. to obtain a grant or help from them). We will make it clear whether we intend to share your data when we obtain it from you.
There are some situations in which we might be able to offer you more support if we share your data with other organisations, for example bodies such as Citizens Advice, debt advice charities, health organisations and council support services.
Please see our data sharing partners document to view the list of organisations we share personal data with and the purpose for the sharing of that data.
We take data security very seriously and are certified for Cyber Essentials, the Government-backed and industry supported scheme to guide businesses in protecting themselves against cyber threats. We store and process the personal data we hold on our secure, internal system which is hosted on servers located in the UK. When we keep paper records, they are stored in locked cupboards accessible only to limited members of staff.
When we use third parties to process your data (e.g. for e-mail news distribution) we only do so if they are based in the UK, registered in the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, or in a country described as having adequate data protection by the European Commission.
How long we keep your data for will depend on the purposes for which we are using it, which will vary from project to project. Our internal policy and governance procedures describe the maximum amount of time we will keep your data; these are available on request.
When we destroy or delete your data we will do so securely.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Cookie policy
Cookies are small files used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when you open our website.
We use first-party and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are those necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data. Third-party cookies are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, speeding up interactions with our website, and providing you with a better user experience.
Manage cookie preferences
You can change your cookie preferences any time by clicking the button on the bottom left of your screen. This will let you revisit the cookie consent banner and change your preferences or withdraw your consent right away.
In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block or delete the cookies. Listed below are the links to the support documents on how to manage and delete cookies from the major web browsers.
If you are using any other web browser, please visit your browser’s official support documents.