Sustainability at FE fundinfo
We acknowledge that putting sustainability at the heart of what we do is a continuous process and there are many ways we can improve what we do. We aim to work with partners and clients so that we can learn from each other to improve sustainability together across our industry.
The information below gives an overview of some of the initiatives that are supporting our endeavours in becoming an even more sustainably focused organisation.
Our Commitment to the Environment
As a global company with offices throughout the world, we both recognise and understand the role we play and the responsibility we have in reducing our carbon footprint. Our commitment includes reducing our business travel, moving to cloud-based data centres, and supporting local initiatives where our offices are based.
Our working practices
We are proud to embed environmentally friendly thinking throughout all of our business practices and continue to look for areas where we can improve. We do this through:
- Measuring our carbon footprint annually via an external party and setting targets to reduce our CO2 emissions.
- Carrying out annual location specific assessments to identify energy efficiencies.
- Our Versatile Working Principles which enable us to work more effectively, efficiently and with greater consideration to the environment when it comes to our business travel.
- Regularly reviewing and revising our environmental policy which guides our daily working practices.
- Being a signatory of the UN Principles in Responsible Investment and committing to minimising our use and consumption of energy and water, reducing our transportation footprint and carefully managing office supplies to source local materials wherever possible.
Our framework for environmental action is guided by the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals*:
12.2 By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
13.2 Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning
13.3 Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning
Click here to find out more about the Sustainable Development Goals guidelines and their 17 goals to transform the world.
Our People
At FE fundinfo we care deeply about our people and their development. We strive to create an environment where every one of our 1,000+ members of staff can thrive and reach their true potential. From the very beginning of their relationship with FE fundinfo at the recruitment stage, to onboarding and later career development, our people and talent development programmes are focused on engagement and wellbeing, which put our employees’ needs and development first. Whether joining as an experienced hire, or whether someone is just starting out in their careers, we are committed to investing in our people’s futures.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
We are determined to create a truly inclusive and supportive organisation which recognises and promotes the benefits that a diverse team brings. In an industry that has taken great strides in recent years to improve its practices, we want to be at the forefront of driving further change to ensure everyone has a voice and can contribute to making both FE fundinfo and the wider industry more diverse, more resilient and able to make better decisions.
Over the past year we have taken a number of important steps to start driving this change:
-
Launching our employee-led ‘Employee Resources’ groups which have created an open space for our people to freely discuss wider societal issues in the wake of global protests on inequality. Over the past year, we have welcomed renowned speakers Elijah Lawal from Google and Nels Abbey a British-Nigerian writer, media executive and satirist who have encouraged us all to think differently and promoted new ideas for working.
- Partnering with award winning early intervention mentoring charity Urban Synergy, who help hundreds of young people between 11-18 years of age reach their full potential. Through our partnership we are helping young people to understand what a career in the fintech industry involves and promoting the idea that there are many avenues to explore depending on a person’s skillset.
- Signing up to the 10,000 black interns initiative to promote greater diversity in the investment industry and helping the prospects of young people in the UK. As part of our commitment, we look forward to welcoming a group of dedicated interns in the summer of 2022 to work across our organisation and gain vital career development experience.
- Recognising there is always more that we can do. We continuously review and update our business ethics practices and policies that are at the heart of our culture and how we operate.
Employee Wellbeing
We understand that in order for our people to reach their true potential, we need to create a supportive environment that places their wellbeing at the heart of everything we do. We offer our people a range of opportunities and programmes to explore their interests outside of work and provide opportunities for personal growth.
We do this by:
- Running regular global and local initiatives specifically to support our people’s physical and mental wellbeing, including yoga sessions, seminars and talks on wellbeing, the Charity Miles challenge and other social activities.
- Applying our ‘Versatile Working Principles’ to support people in getting work done in the most appropriate and effective way for their role, the team and their individual circumstances. We recognise that for many, the world of working looks very different now to how it did in the past and we want to support this through initiatives such as flexible and remote working.
- Looking to continuously improve, by conducting regular surveys among our people to understand how we can support them further. It is vitally important to us that our people feel they have a voice in shaping our future and we run regular feedback and touchpoint initiatives to understand what issues are affecting them.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Our ethos as a company with operations all over the world, is to “think global and act local” and as such, we recognise that our local communities are an important part of who we are. We actively support the communities where we work and encourage our people, no matter where they are based, to make positive contributions to wider society.
We do this by:
- Hosting our ‘Community Day – a day to give back’, which provides everyone in FE fundinfo with the opportunity to contribute their time to a local cause that matters to them.
- Sponsoring Urban Synergy, a mentoring charity that helps hundreds of young people between 10-18 years of age reach their full potential through outcome focused mentoring programmes, inspirational online seminars and work experience
- Running our monthly active challenge through the health app Charity Miles. Each month employees across our offices walk, run and cycle to rack up miles which are then converted into a donation to a charity of the given office’s choice.
10.3 Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard
10.4 Adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality
Our Governance Approach
Embedding sustainability throughout our business and operations is a continuous process. We want to build a business that is forward looking and takes long-term decisions to ensure we are always making positive contributions to the environment and wider society. To do this we have a foundation of strong governance based on company-wide commitments and policies.
Our policies guide our decision-making and the actions we take, in regard to how we set goals, how we ensure risk is monitored and addressed, and how we optimise performance. These policies help us to uphold our legal and compliance obligations as a company in the financial services industry, but also the high ethical and sustainability standards to which we hold ourselves accountable. The following policies and documents are instrumental to our commitment to sustainable operations:
- Information Security Policy
- Data Protection and Privacy Policy
- Inducements, Benefits, Gifts and Anti-bribery Policy
- Business Code of Ethics
- Environmental Policy
- Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy
- Corporate Social Responsibility Policy