Quick-Reference Guide to ESG at Alfa
We include a lot of information in our 2020 Annual Report(particularly within the ESG section at pg 56 - pg 63) and on our ESG page, so this document is intended to act as a roadmap of the areas where we receive most questions. Should you require any further information on ESG at Alfa, please get in contact with our CFO, Duncan Magrath (duncan.magrath@alfasystems.com).
AREA | ROADMAP | FURTHER INFO | |
OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES | |||
Our people | Many of Alfa's people are engaged in a wide variety of socially responsible activities, and Alfa actively | Our Social Impact page | |
supports and encourages this. Alfa's dedicated Social Impact Team has been in place for over 15 years, | |||
with team members drawn from across the Company. | pg 61-62 of our 2020 Annual Report | ||
on Alfa Green Team / Environmental | |||
Alfa provides everyone with 3 days per year to support Social Impact / ESG activities. These are charged to | Impact Team initiatives | ||
an ESG time code. The total time charged to this code is approximately 1 FTE - of which approximately | |||
50% relates to climate change issues. | |||
United Nations | Alfa has selected four sustainable development goals to help shape and inform our ESG efforts: | Our dedicated UN SDG page | |
Sustainable | |||
Development | ∙ | Quality education | |
Goals | ∙ | Gender Equality | |
∙ | Climate Action | ||
∙ Partnerships for the Goals | |||
Our values | Alfa's company values are: | Our purpose and values page | |
∙ Challenge without being challenging | |||
∙ Let great ideas grow | |||
∙ Create a positive impact | |||
∙ Make it better together | |||
ENVIRONMENT | |||
Responsibility | Alfa's CFO, Duncan Magrath, is ultimately responsible for our Environmental Policy and climate change | ||
issues. One of the aims of our Environmental Policy is to carry out our business in a manner that minimises | |||
our impact on the environment. | |||
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Alfa's ESG Manager, Grahame Williams, oversees all initiatives which derive from this policy as they are put | |||
into action. | |||
The Alfa Green Team / Environmental Impact Team, a group of volunteers from all levels of the company, | |||
is responsible for the execution of organised activities and the monitoring of standards established to | |||
ensure adherence to our environmental goals. | |||
Emissions | Alfa's footprint is calculated using the EMA methodology for SECR Reporting on calculating organisational | Pg 63 of our 2020 Annual Report | |
monitoring and | footprints. Alfa plans to follow TCFD reporting guidelines for our 2021 Annual Report. | ||
reduction; TCFD | |||
Carbon neutrality | Alfa has implemented offsetting for carbon neutrality during the course of 2021, by partnering with | Pg 62 - pg 63 of our 2020 Annual | |
and net zero | Ecologi. | Report | |
Alfa has already taken steps to reduce carbon emissions. Alfa's next steps are to update our corporate | |||
policies to move to further reduce carbon emissions. | |||
Environmental | Alfa's Environmental Policy includes a commitment to continue to engage and educate employees and | Pg 53 of our 2020 Annual Reporton | |
awareness and | other stakeholders on the importance of sustainability, and encourage sustainable activity. | consulting stakeholders | |
consulting | |||
stakeholders | The Alfa Green Team / Environmental Impact Team is heavily involved in raising awareness, and the UK- | pg 62 of our 2020 Annual Reporton | |
based charity, The Climate Coalition, has been chosen by Alfa's UK employees as Alfa's UK charity partner | Alfa Green Team / Environmental | ||
for the 2021-2022 fiscal year. | Impact Team initiatives | ||
Electricity | Alfa sources our electricity from renewable energy provider, Opus. During 2020, 68% of Alfa's UK | ||
electricity was sourced from renewable sources. | |||
Our office | Alfa's London office has achieved an 'excellent' rating under the BREEAM In-Use certification for 2021/22. | ||
buildings | |||
Our office | Alfa has carefully selected suppliers and implemented various initiatives in our London office, to minimise | ||
environment | our impact on the environment - here is a taster: | ||
∙ Partnering with bio-bean,to renew our used coffee grounds for reuse in bio-products. | |||
∙ Installing organic food waste bins to collect left over food and turn it into compost. | |||
∙ Using eco-friendlyMethodcleaning products. | |||
∙ Offering staff participation in the Cycle to Work scheme. | |||
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Responsible end- | Alfa's Data and Equipment Disposal Policy covers off securely and sustainably disposing of IT equipment, | ||||
of-life | including laptops. | ||||
management of | |||||
hardware | Alfa recycles technical hardware that cannot be donated to charity and has recently partnered with e- | ||||
recycling company KOcycle, to recycle all outdated IT hardware that is no longer used in the London office. | |||||
Alfa also had a 'recycling laptops to schools' initiative in 2021. | |||||
Sustainable | Alfa is committed to adopting and applying the latest technology, including server virtualisation | ||||
products and | technology, to ensure that our customers' energy consumption is kept to a minimum. | ||||
services | |||||
Our product, Alfa Systems, provides some functionality to enable our customers to charge their customers | |||||
on a usage basis, therefore making utilisation of assets more efficient. | |||||
Our data centres | In owned data centres, our provider has noted that 94% of our energy utilisation was from renewable | Our page on Alfa Systems Cloud | |||
energy sources. | Hosting | ||||
Alfa also uses data centres operated by a third-party, AWS Cloud Computing. AWS is committed to | |||||
powering operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025. | |||||
SOCIAL | |||||
Equal | Non-discrimination on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender reassignment, religion or | ||||
opportunities and | belief, marital status, civil partnership status, age, race, colour, nationality, national or ethnic origins and | ||||
non- | disability is central to Alfa's Building Business and Careers and Equal Opportunities and Hiring Policy. | ||||
discrimination | |||||
During 2020, Alfa developed and delivered Inclusive Recruitment training for everyone involved in the | |||||
recruitment process. Alfa also provided Unconscious Bias and Allyship training company-wide. | |||||
Commitment to | Responsibility: Inclusion & Diversity is very important to the Board and wider employees. Inclusion & | Pg 24,pg 57and pg 61of our 2020 | |||
Inclusion & | Diversity is a corporate objective owned by Alfa's Chief People Officer. Progression against this corporate | Annual Report | |||
Diversity | objective is reported monthly to the Company Leadership Team and to the Board. | ||||
Our dedicated Inclusion & Diversity | |||||
Alfa has multiple communities: Inclusion, LGBTQ+, Racial Equity, Women's Community, Parents' | page | ||||
Community, Environmental Impact and Social Impact. Each of our communities has a Company Leadership | |||||
Team sponsor whose role it is to support, facilitate and remove barriers to enable the community's | Our blog postsincluding one | ||||
agenda. The Chief People Officer meets monthly with the community chairs to discuss what support is | discussingnon-binaryidentityand | ||||
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needed, what activities are coming up and how the community can increase awareness across the | announcing the launch of the Alfa for | ||||
company. | Racial Equity community | ||||
Intersectionality: In 2020, we focused on intersectionality between our communities, creating an Inclusion | |||||
& Diversity Advisory Group to encourage discussion, sharing & joining up of agendas and collective drive | |||||
on our Inclusion & Diversity agenda. | |||||
Education and awareness: Programmes in this area are very much in demand within Alfa. As well as a | |||||
calendar of social talks and events organised by our active communities, Alfa also ran a series of Inclusion | |||||
and Diversity workshops in 2020 and has been rolling out an Inclusive Leadership training programme. | |||||
Alfa using its voice: Alfa is a Stonewall Diversity Champion: Alfa is committed to providing an environment | |||||
where all LGBTQ+ people are free to be themselves. Externally we have highlighted important issues by | |||||
using our corporate voice to support and champion bodies such as the Black British Network,Stonewall, | |||||
DIAL Globaland theWomen's Association. | |||||
Policies: The principle of freedom of discrimination embedded within Alfa's policies generally are | |||||
underpinned by our Harassment Policyand our Disciplinary Policy. | |||||
Gender pay gap | The mean and median pay gaps have reduced between 2019 and 2020. 2021 results will be available in our | Pg 59 of our 2020 Annual Report | |||
data | 2021 Annual Report. | ||||
Gender diversity | 30% of our people are female. 49% of our new graduates for 2021 are female and 40% of all new recruits | Pg 57and pg 78of our 2020 Annual | |||
in 2021 are female. | Report | ||||
Contractors | Of the 406 people who worked at Alfa during 2020, 6.4 % were contractors. | ||||
Supporting our | Alfa has an array of policies and initiatives in place to support our people: | Pg 57 - 58and pg 72of our 2020 | |||
people | Annual Report | ||||
∙ Various family friendly policies, covering paid adoption and surrogacy leave, enhanced paternity | |||||
and maternity leave and shared parental leave. | |||||
∙ Paid carer leave. | |||||
∙ Transitioning at Work Policy, supported by guides for managers. | |||||
∙ A global Mental Health First Aider (MHFA) programme, where individuals trained as MHFAs act as | |||||
points of contact for colleagues who are experiencing a difficult time or emotional distress. | |||||
∙ Employee Assistance Programme, to provide 24/7 support for employees, including counselling. | |||||
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∙ A very active Alfa Wellbeing team, providing regular content and holding events with experts on | |||
various topics. | |||
∙ 24hr online service to access GP advice. | |||
∙ Flexible and hybrid working and remote working policies. | |||
In addition to the 3 days per year provided to employees to support Social Impact / ESG / CSR activities, | |||
Alfa also provides employees at least 3 days per year for personal development; and 4 days per year for | |||
innovation, which is open to any projects and initiatives that improve life at Alfa. | |||
Retaining our | Alfa's full time staff voluntary turnover rates for 2020 stood at (i) 10.6% for all workers (including | Pg 47 of our 2020 Annual Report | |
people | employees); and (ii) 5.9% for employees only. | ||
Engaging with our | Alfa runs an employee-engagement survey every 2 months. The results are presented by the CEO to the | See references in the 2020 Annual | |
employees | Board. Any concerns raised are reviewed by a committee of employees and allocated to the appropriate | Report to the 'Pulse' survey - pg 14, | |
Company Leadership Team member for resolution. In addition, Alfa also holds quarterly townhalls where | pg 37,pg 54,pg 58andpg 65 | ||
employees can submit questions anonymously to the Company Leadership Team. | |||
Accessibility | Alfa is committed to ensuring Alfa Systems is accessible as possible and has a dedicated UI/UX Design team | ||
who have accessibility as part of their core remit. This team has carried out accessibility audits of the Alfa | |||
Systems software, part of which was informed by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The | |||
audit also compared our software against the WCAG 2.1 AA specification and allowed us to identify and | |||
prioritize specific accessibility gaps. For new Alfa Systems components added to our Design System we | |||
consider accessibility up-front, ensuring the correct ARIA attributes are added etc. and we perform screen | |||
reader testing using the VoiceOver tool. | |||
Supplier | Alfa does not support any form of slavery, human trafficking or child labour and Alfa works only with | Pg 72 of our 2020 Annual Report | |
standards | suppliers that have been assessed through our internal processes to be ethical providers. Alfa has an | ||
ethical procurement policy and our key procurement personnel have been trained in relation to the | |||
relevant requirements and regulations. | |||
Data protection | Alfa has maintained compliance with the following in 2020: | Pg 43and pg 48of our 2020 Annual | |
and customer | Report | ||
security | ∙ SOC2 Type 2(safeguarding customer data), | ||
∙ ISO27001(information security management system), | Our Alfa Systems Cloud Hosting page | ||
∙ ISO27018(protection of personally identifiable information in public clouds - covering the | |||
processes and security of our Alfa Hosting Service). | Alfa Privacy Policy | ||
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Alfa Financial Software Holdings plc published this content on 26 November 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 26 November 2021 10:29:03 UTC.