Compass exists to provide excellent support for children and young people requiring foster care, and to give every child the opportunity to have a positive childhood. At the same time, we look after our foster carers, providing excellent support, training and pay, along with our fantastic teams of staff, across each of our services.
The Compass Community is comprised of 4 pillars, our Fostering service, our Residential Children’s Homes, our Compass Community Schools and our Therapeutic services.
We know that providing these services takes hard work, with many people involved, along with plenty of resources. So that’s why we want to make sure that we’re doing as much as we can to promote sustainable and fair practice, and ESG reporting lets us know this.
What does ESG stand for?
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance; three factors which make an organisation what it is. It is a huge part of everything we do, and every impactful choice we make is considered in our yearly ESG reports. It gives us tangible proof of the sustainable practices we carry and helps us work out areas that we can improve upon.
Sustainability is a more pressing issue now more than ever. Over the past year we have aimed to get ahead of the curve, creating a positive impact across all three areas of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG). We do this while keeping our values centred around our number one priority – child welfare and development.
This page serves to be an ESG ‘hub.’ Here you can find our latest resources and information that we will be producing to shout about our achievements, goals and commitments regarding ESG.
Compass’ ESG reports
In 2019 we formed our ESG committee, and we are beginning to drive action across our organisation, with a cross-section of employees and senior staff to make sure changes are implemented at every level.
Over the last few years, we have been advised by Sustainable Advantage, a leading ESG consultancy, to provide external, independent feedback that keeps us on the most efficient path to achieve the most impactful results.
The spirit of cooperation, together with a unique combination of knowledge, experience, and professional skills, dramatically increases the chances of a successful outcome for the young people and foster families we work with.
We have chosen to align our ESG ambitions with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is an international framework used to track and deliver true global sustainability. As part of our alignment with the SDGs a key them of our ESG strategy will be tracking and monitoring the impacts we have as an organisation, both to understand better our effect upon our communities and the world around us, but also to make our actions more accountable.
You can read more about our ESG development goals for 2020-2021 here.
We understand the importance of sharing they way Compass works with our staff, our foster families, and our stakeholders. Providing our ESG data makes what we do more transparent and holds us accountable for actionable changes we can take in the future.
We will be more resilient and sustainable in the long-term, meaning better futures for children and young people!
Breaking down ESG
Environment
The Environmental factors of an organisation means issues such as:
• Climate change and carbon emissions, air, and water quality (like pollution), biodiversity, deforestation, energy efficiency and waste management.
At Compass we always keep in mind the impact of operations on the environment and wider community and this year we will look to better understand our impacts and how exactly the actions we take influence these.
Social
The Social aspect of an organisation means things like:
• Customer satisfaction, data protection and privacy, gender and diversity, employee engagement, community relations, human rights, and labour standards.
Our social commitments revolve around not just the care we provide to our children, but also our responsibilities towards our employees and local communities.
With Covid-19 becoming a part of our lives, we have worked to ensure all our people are in the safest, healthiest, and happiest environments they can be, while fully complying with all government regulations. Beyond the extraordinary circumstances of the last year, we ensure our employees and quality of care are protected by company policies that are regularly audited by external, independent auditors.
Governance
Governance is important to an organisation like ours, it concerns:
• Board composition, audit committee structure, bribery and corruption, executive compensation, lobbying, political contributions, and whistle-blower programs.
Proper governance is essential throughout our organisation to maintain quality of service and ensure all children are safeguarded and protected whilst making a lasting difference to their lives. With the formation of our ESG committee led by a formal leadership group, sustainability will form part of the same robust audit frameworks as all other leadership teams throughout the business, and as such will align with Our Vision.
One of our core values is to never stand still and always look to improve. This, along with the mindfulness to self-reflect and learn, ensures continual improvement.
In this sense our first annual ESG Impact Report outlines our commitments to become a truly sustainable and ethical business and provides insight into how we currently perform, and how we intend to raise our standards year on year. Ultimately, how we conduct ourselves and our business influences the world our children grow up in and will always reflect why Compass exists, to give a child a childhood.
You can take a look at our full 2019-2020 Compass ESG report here.
You can read our latest ESG report in full here. For the year 2020-2021.
