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Corporate social responsibility

Energy Saving Trust works hard to manage its environmental impact. We hold ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 certification to demonstrate our commitment to environmental performance.

This certification involves regular independent assessment to verify we’re maintaining the standard necessary for this certification, including having an environmental management system and that we are committed to proactively improving our environmental performance by:

• reducing consumption
• minimising our carbon footprint
• promoting sustainable energy usage

Our internal Sustainability Groups, based across all our offices are central to our culture of promoting environmental activities and sustainable behaviour throughout the organisation.

The groups monitor and report the organisation’s carbon footprint each year, identifying areas for improvement. Each group focuses on our energy use, responsible waste management, ensuring that where possible, staff use low carbon travel options plus sustainable procurement and services to reduce our environmental impact.

The Foundation is the not-for-profit arm of Energy Saving Trust and forms part of our corporate social responsibility activities.

Climate change knows no boundaries and is impacting people across the world. Energy Saving Trust is committed to developing equitable responses to address the climate emergency for everyone. This includes work to support those who are often marginalised in our societies and who are being hard hit by the impact of climate change.

To achieve our ambitious mission, we need a diversity of people, experiences and ideas. At Energy Saving Trust, we are committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace where our people are representative of the areas in which we work, able to be themselves and supported to be their best.

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Directors’ statement of compliance with duty to promote the success of Energy Saving Trust Limited and the Energy Saving Trust Group, 2020-21

Decisions at Energy Saving Trust are driven by the organisation’s mission to address the climate emergency. The UK and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments’ commitment to a statutory target of net zero emissions means Energy Saving Trust will continue to be at the heart of the movement towards a low carbon economy, working to reduce the UK’s dependency on fossil fuels and raising awareness of energy efficiency, small scale renewables and sustainable transport. We seek to grow the organisation to produce greater impact on the ever-intensifying climate emergency, investing in increasing the scale of our programmes and in reaching more people with our messages, in line with a strategic plan for growth approved by the Board and reviewed and updated each year. We are able to make this investment as any surpluses we generate are not distributed but reinvested to support and develop our mission. We continue to focus on key areas: smart and efficient homes, data supporting reduction of carbon emissions, transport, consumer insight and behaviours and growth in international programmes.

To address these key areas we have developed a number of state of the art tools to provide and use data on energy use and carbon emissions from homes. We work with a wide variety of partners to develop solutions that address and mitigate transport energy use and carbon emissions, including solutions to improve air quality. We also provide information, data and insight on energy saving behaviours, insulation and energy efficiency, generating energy, sustainable transport and water. In the four countries of the UK, by collaborating with other organisations, we continue to engage with hard-to-reach audiences, including those on lower incomes, helping to remove the barriers that prevent vulnerable customers from getting the support needed to save money and reduce energy consumption.

Finally, beyond the UK, as well as continuing to play a key role in a number of EU-funded projects, we are also delivering projects with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the IKEA Foundation to both improve access to energy efficient products and services in the developing world and to significantly reduce their costs. We develop these opportunities primarily through existing and growing relationships with Government departments concerned with overseas development, with charitable foundations and with philanthropic donors.

Energy Saving Trust’s work is also driven by its values of expertise, collaboration, impartiality and fairness, innovation, determination and support and our reputation is high amongst our stakeholders as a result. In line with our values we work collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders in the public and private sectors and conduct regular surveys of our stakeholders to obtain their views of our work and shape it going forward. We also adhere closely to these values in our business relationships with suppliers, including ensuring we pay promptly on agreed terms. We have a strong focus on quality in all our services to our many thousands of customers, including investing in a dedicated customer service quality team. We treat all our customers fairly, with strong complaints procedures and a focus on learning from our customers’ feedback to drive continuous improvement. Our success in these areas is reflected in our high Net Promoter Scores for our customer-facing services.

We work closely with all four UK governments as key stakeholders and funders of our work, and our work supports and contributes to many of their key policies and objectives. We maintain close liaison with a range of officials in all four governments and feed back lessons from the programmes that we deliver on their behalf to assist their policy development.

The group has strong regard to the interest of its staff team of more than 300, as they are at the heart of everything we do, and we invest in their success. All employees have regular touch points with managers, as well as clear objectives and a personal development plan. To support their training and development needs, we offer access to courses and information covering professional and personal development, in addition to wellbeing, on our in-house platform. In 2021-22 we have invested in coaching for staff, in developing a comprehensive diversity and inclusion strategy and in supporting staff in dealing with the stresses and strains of working at home as a result of the pandemic. We provide access to a 24/7 employee assistance helpline via our Employee Assistance Programme, provided by Health Assured. We carry out regular employee surveys to assess and understand what our people think and get employee input, and the Chief Executive and senior leadership team brief all teams on group operations and plans every two months. There is also a staff recognition scheme by which employees’ achievements in line with our values are publicly celebrated. All staff are paid at least the real living wage.

Energy Saving Trust’s work supports and empowers many communities across the UK through our range of programmes addressing fuel poverty, through other programmes supporting local authorities and housing associations and by assisting community organisations in developing community-owned renewable generation assets. Energy Saving Trust is naturally also very focused on its own impact on the environment, particularly its carbon emissions. The company has already taken a number of individual measures in this area, for example strongly encouraging video-conferencing rather than travel, very heavily restricting air travel, a cycle loan scheme for staff and upgrading its printers to reduce energy and resource use by more than 86% and 98% respectively. However, recognising we need to go further, faster, in 2020-21 we also began to develop a comprehensive net zero strategy for the company, sponsored by the CEO and led by a member of the senior leadership team.