Column: Going Green
WHAT IS ESG
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) is a method of evaluating a firm’s approach to social and environmental factors. First coined in the United Nations PRI (Principles for Responsible Investing) back in 2006, its roots go back further. Today, it is gaining considerable traction throughout business globally.
• Environmental: criteria include energy use, resources required and waste produced, with consideration of carbon emissions, water and air pollution and other factors potentially influencing climate change.
• Social: criteria cover labour relations, working practices, health and safety, and diversity and inclusion, as well as attitudes and relationships with customers and the community at large.
• Governance: the internal system of practices, procedures and controls a company needs to run its business, comply with the law and meet the needs of external stakeholders.
Most major institutional investors today equate a high ESG rating with higher potential returns. Recent research has also shown that a strong ESG proposition not only correlates with higher equity returns, but also reduces risk and provides higher resilience and greater stability. From a corporate standpoint, the risk to reputation and business of being identified as, for example, a user or supplier of products manufactured using forced labour, or a manufacturer systematically polluting the environment or continuing to pursue policies that impact climate change, is driving a greater emphasis on ESG at board level.
While greater pressure from customers, employees and society at large on issues such as climate change, discrimination and slave labour is making governments and businesses sit up and take notice, it is probably investors who will do more to drive corporations toward greater ESG accountability.
and socially-responsible solutions. We will also selectively support start-up businesses that are developing sustainable technologies that will make a difference. We are an official partner of WITT Energy, an energy harvesting and portable power generation project.
Empowering our people Our amazing team of 7,500 people in 32 countries is the lifeblood of our organisation. We are committed to creating a safe, inclusive and dynamic culture, where everyone can thrive and grow. To ensure that we truly reflect the customers, suppliers and communities we serve, we are focused on building a truly diverse leadership team and a wider organisation. We are working toward women being 40% of our leaders and 25% ethnically diverse. We have launched a leadership
programme for 1600+ people managers globally, and established employee resource groups and cultural campaigns that champion diversity in the workplace. Recently we rolled out inclusion training courses for all our employees globally. Health and safety and the well-being
of our people has always been a key priority. For this reason, we were able to react swiſtly when the pandemic hit, encouraging and supporting all those who could work from home, and providing PPE and adapting operations for our colleagues worldwide. Our track record and continued investment and commitment to inclusion, wellbeing, learning and development are designed to improve our employee engagement score. Which, in fact, has been rising steadily in recent years, and by 2030 we want to be in the top 10% of the most engaged companies in the world. Employee engagement is critical for motivation and satisfaction and helps ensure a high-performance team that will drive our success. We will encourage our colleagues to volunteer, to share their skills and make a difference in their communities, by giving them two paid days a year for these activities.
Doing business responsibly We are taking action to ensure the highest ethical and environmental standards
throughout our business and global value chain. Working with thousands of suppliers around the world, this will be a major challenge, particularly important to our customers and partners who want reassurance and actual proof that their suppliers meet both ethical and quality standards. We all need to source responsibly, ensuring sound working practices, good labour relations and improved environmental standards. We have already increased our activity in this area, signing the UN Global Compact, revising our ethical trading declaration, and joining forces with Sedex to improve due diligence and management of our supplier partners. We also conduct on- site ethical inspections with our RS PRO suppliers in Asia, having completed 89 audits in the past two years. To encourage action in this space from
our colleagues and our supplier partners, we will be embedding ESG objectives in employee rewards across all levels and geographies, as well as our supplier partnerships. Furthermore, we have modified our £300m revolving credit facility to link with three of our most material 2030 ESG actions. Tis truly is an Action Plan and not just
hollow words. We believe that having a strong ESG plan is critical for us to become a truly great company and deliver long term value for people, planet and profit. It might be ambitious and bold, but it also has to make a difference.
ELECTROCOMPONENTS
• The Electrocomponents Group operates in 32 countries, with nine brands, 14 distribution centres and 7500 employees.
• It sources over 500,000 electronics and industrial products from more than 2500 suppliers globally.
• It supplies more than one million customers in 80 countries, shipping over 60,000 parcels per day.
• Our ESG ratings include CDP 2020: A; EcoVadis: Gold; MSCI: A; Sustainalytics: negligible risk
www.electronicsworld.com December 2021/January 2022 09
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66
