Social impact and ESG
We are here to help people, businesses and society prosper in good times and be resilient in bad times.
Building resilient communities
We’re focused on building resilience. That means helping society and our customers adapt to the impacts of climate change and creating opportunities for children and families living in poverty.
The focus of our work in building resilient communities is in three dimensions of impact:
- Climate resilience
- Creating opportunity
- Community generosity
Climate change
Our climate is rapidly changing, and we've been on the front lines with our customers of the increasing impacts of severe weather for more than a decade. The five pillars of our climate transition strategy will help people, businesses and society manage the risks in their transition to a sustainable future, by leveraging our strengths and expertise.
The first focus of our Social Impact Strategy is to ensure that our most vulnerable and climate affected communities are climate resilient, outlined in our ambition to double down on adaptation in our climate strategy.
Commit
Commit to a net zero ambition overall by 2050
Adapt
Double down on helping people adapt to climate change
Shape
Leverage our platform to shape customer behaviour
Enable
Enable the transformation by supporting existing and new industries that are key to the transition
Collaborate
Collaborate with governments and industry to influence and accelerate climate action
Create opportunity
We work with expert partners to create opportunities for children and families living in poverty. We focus on activating local solutions across three key areas:
- Education and economic resilience
- Employment and financial inclusion
- Food poverty, health and wellbeing.
Community generosity
Being active in communities is a core part of our business. We enable and encourage our employees to give back to their local communities and support causes they care about. Our employees contribute to community-based organizations and initiatives through:
- Charitable donations
- Volunteering
- Matched funding and give as you earn
Empowering employee generosity
Raising money for charities is important to our employees, which is why we offer popular matched funding programs in the UK, US and Canada and payroll-giving schemes in the UK and Ireland. These activities, combined with our employees’ contributions of time and strategic community partnerships, contributed to a total global investment of CAD$12.9 million in 2021.
Leveraging our expertise
We are particularly committed to leveraging our expertise and investment to improve risk education in schools, in the workplace and in the home through a behaviour change programme. In the UK this includes a partnership with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), targeted at over 65s to reduce the risk of falls in the home. 428 people became certified RoSPA Fall Fighters in 2021/22, sharing home safety and fall prevention tips in their communities.
Supporting community-based climate resilience
Our UK Climate Change and Risk Education grant program utilized funds from the UK Dividend Forfeiture Scheme to support 48 local charities in 2021. A total of £200,500 was distributed to projects to tackle climate change, conserve biodiversity and offset carbon emissions.
Social impact and ESG performance and disclosure
As a purpose-driven business, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) has been integral to our strategy since our inception. Our ESG priorities support our outperformance and create long-term value for our stakeholders.
To learn more about our key ESG priorities and how we’re helping to build a more resilient future, view our reports and policies.
