Environmental, Sustainability & Governance
Reed’s company purpose is improving lives through work. We fundamentally believe being a champion of the environment lies at the very heart of our purpose.
One of our values is “we take ownership”. This value is as true about our approach to the environment as it is in the day to day running of our business. It’s what drove us to be CarbonNeutral® back in 2005. We were the first major UK recruitment company to do so.
Taking positive action will not just affect our impact on the climate but makes economic sense too. Maximising efficiency in our consumption and reducing our waste will have a net benefit on our business’s bottom line.
In January 2020 we updated our environmental policy and made three pledges which we will commit to:
Make year on year reductions in our carbon emissions and maintain our CarbonNeutral® status, by:
Philosophy: Reed aims to minimise its use of resources through the “Reduce, Re-use and Recycle” philosophy
Eliminate single use plastics
Plastic items that are only intended to be used for a short period of time, generally only once, before they are disposed of either into landfill or recycling e.g. plastic bags, straws, coffee stirrers, water bottles.
We will ensure each of the Reed businesses introduces the 5 Ps taken from lessplastic.org.uk
We will ensure that co-members are empowered to take action on reducing their own plastic usage.
We hope to employ what influence we have as a purchasing organisation to encourage good environmental practice in the wider business community and to this end we require all potential suppliers and contractors to provide evidence of a written Environmental Policy and ISO 14001 Certification, if applicable. We also require all potential suppliers and contractors wishing to do business with us to demonstrate how they implement their Environmental Policy in relation to their own sourcing policies, processes and with regard to subcontractors.
We have taken guidance from the Environment Agency and reviewed our procurement procedures to ensure that environmental sustainability is embedded in all processes.
The majority of products used by Reed, including documents for clients and candidates, are printed on recycled paper. For all promotions, environmentally friendly items are always considered as the first option. A range of digital marketing campaigns, accounts and websites are used to reduce paper stock and the potential for waste.
We utilise e-sign technology to manage our contract process; both with our suppliers and customers. This allows us to track the status of contracts in real-time, increases efficiency and deployment times, enhances security, and reduces paper wastage.
