What’s next?

This year we have successfully spent a million pounds on CSR, supported 72 organisations, encouraged over 40% of staff to volunteer, met all 17 UN Sustainable Business Goals and supported 16,000 beneficiaries worldwide. So where do we go from here?

Our commitment to spend 1% of sales on CSR continues. We encourage staff to come forward with ideas for new organisations to donate to. Equally we will continue to partner with some of the organisations we have already supported. We will be making 3-year funding commitments to some of our headline partners to provide them with core funding and enable them to develop in new directions. Two examples: we will be supporting Walkabout Foundation not just to provide wheelchairs but also community staff training, a rehabilitation programme in camps and communities, and education in disability to local community leaders to avoid prejudice.  And the tiny but dedicated team of Unity in Health will be funded for three years to pay the director (who has been volunteering for three years!) and a fundraiser to help them develop their mental health services in Nepal further.

This year we want to encourage more staff and particularly managers to volunteer, and more CSR teambuilding activities. Over 40% was great but remember you have two days to use: use them or lose them.

In a number of our offices we are subsidising pay to the lowest paid external agency cleaners to make sure that nobody who works for us is earning less than a “living”, not a “minimum”, wage.

Finally the environment: we are working hard in London to make the office plastic bottle (and straw) free, we have replaced our cleaning products with environmentally friendly ones, we have changed our energy supplier to an eco-supplier and are carbon offsetting our energy use as well as flights. We would love these initiatives to spread to all offices.

Thanks to all of you who have done so much this year. The CSR Committees are amazing: remember you can go to a meeting or offer help at any time. And thanks to our CSR Coordinators in Vilnius, Chicago and Bangalore who have helped so much during the year.

Source: Euromonitor International