It will not be applicable to most UK firms unless they are large multi-nationals. However, the fact that this legislation is being brought into much of Europe highlights the importance of having an Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) strategy.

This doesn’t just apply to large firms, ESG should be a priority for small and medium sized businesses too and be part of a firm’s culture. More and more investors, partners, stakeholders, regulators, customers and employees want to work with firms who can prove their ESG credentials.

The Phoebus ESG journey goes back many years to the days of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which was always a strong element of our culture. That has now been surpassed by our comprehensive ESG strategy and we recently launched our second ESG Report, ‘Positive Impact Report’, setting out a five-year plan. The crux of this strategy is the four pillars of climate, community, people and governance.

Climate

Climate change is impacting our world and is a huge problem but firms can play their part. Phoebus has been carbon neutral since 2010 and we are on target to be net zero by 2030. There are a number of sustainability specialists, such as Positive Planet who we partner with, that can help companies measure their carbon emissions and facilitate carbon offsetting.

We have created a dashboard that captures all the relevant data across our locations which helps us to maintain a running tally of our carbon emissions and reductions. Having this digital carbon footprint helps to track progress and is a valuable tool for continuous improvement.

Key members of our team are undertaking Carbon Literacy Training with the aim of achieving organisational Gold Accreditation in 2024. Becoming a carbon literate organisation involves developing a deep understanding of carbon emissions, their sources, and the impact they have on climate change. We also intend to extend the delivery of free Carbon Literacy Training to existing and potential Phoebus clients hoping this will inspire other organisations.

It is also important for colleagues to embrace the ESG policy so we have created an internal ‘green team’ which champions positive environmental activities. It meets regularly and communicates to the wider business on progress of carbon zero plans.

Community

Supporting your local community is also important and can be done in a number of ways, such as corporate giving and industry–academia partnerships. We work closely with local schools and Aston University, for example, to promote technology as a career and provide students with work experience.

We have a charity committee that focuses on fundraising, events, volunteering and engaging colleagues with charity and community work. Colleagues also select a charity of the year, for example, the Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity, and in recognition of our efforts, we have been named one of the charity’s ‘100 Heroes for 2023’. It’s nice to give but it’s also nice to be rewarded.

People

Our people are at the heart of our business and we have many benefits, awards, training programmes and awareness initiatives for colleagues to advance their career and personal development. But we have fun too with social events for colleagues and their families and team meals out.

It is important to have a strong diversity, equality and inclusion culture and our policies reflect this. We also have free employee assistance and wellbeing programmes, eight colleagues are qualified Mental Health First Aiders and we have a menopause support programme.

By investing in people we get high levels of work satisfaction and last year’s retention rate was excellent at 82.4%.

Governance

Strong governance practices are essential for the sustainable growth and long-term success of a business. Our governance framework is designed to ensure that we operate in a responsible, ethical and compliant manner, while also considering the interests of our stakeholders, including employees, clients, investors and the wider community.

Effective governance is a journey so our Executive Leadership Team regularly reviews and updates policies and procedures. Stakeholder engagement is also important so we actively seek input from our clients and partners on matters of governance and sustainability.

We take the security of our systems extremely seriously and recently obtained the System and Organisation Controls (SOC) Type 2 attestation, which is the highest data security standard. This confirms we manage data securely to protect us and the privacy of our clients, which is vital for a technology company. We are also accredited with the ISO 27001 international standard for information security.

We’re proud of the progress we are making across all our ESG objectives. Our five-year ESG plan sets out a clear roadmap of activities to keep positive impact at the forefront of our strategy. We encourage all firms to get behind ESG, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but it also makes your business stronger.

Kate Langton is chief people officer at Phoebus