Corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility means, for us, that the way we make money is examined as closely as how much of it we make. That covers who we take on as a client, how we describe an investment, and how we behave when an offer we have presented does not go well.

We are a signatory to the principles of the UN Global Compact on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, and we report on what we have actually done each year rather than what we intend to do.

Our direct environmental impact is small: an office, some travel, and cloud infrastructure. We measure all three and reduce them in that order, starting with travel because it is the largest and the most discretionary.

We do not send unsolicited printed material. Where printing is necessary it is on certified stock and double-sided by default. Waste electricals are recycled through a licensed contractor rather than disposed of with general waste.

Water is not a large part of our own footprint, but it is a serious constraint on many of the businesses we look at, particularly in manufacturing and food.

We ask companies about water use and discharge as part of screening, and we expect those with material exposure to be able to describe it. Our own commitment is straightforward: metered supply, prompt repair of leaks, and no bottled water in the office.

All paper and packaging we buy carries FSC or PEFC chain-of-custody certification, which traces the material back to a forest managed to a defined standard rather than relying on a supplier's description.

Certification is a floor, not an achievement. The more useful commitment is buying less paper, which is why our offer documentation is issued digitally by default.

Our electricity is supplied on a renewable tariff backed by Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin certificates, which evidence that an equivalent amount of electricity was generated from renewable sources and fed into the grid.

We are clear about the limits of that. A REGO-backed tariff is a supply arrangement, not a claim that our building runs on renewable electricity at every hour of the day. Reducing consumption remains the more meaningful measure.

We pay at or above the real Living Wage, we publish the pay range on every role we advertise, and we do not use unpaid internships.

We recruit and promote in line with the Equality Act 2010 and we review pay annually for unexplained gaps. Everyone has a route to raise a concern that does not run through their own line manager.

We support financial education, which is the area where our knowledge is worth more than our money. That means free plain-English material on how the schemes work, published openly on this site rather than gated behind a form.

Every article in our resources section is available without registration, including to people who will never qualify to invest through us.